LINCOLN 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 

presented  by 

Marion  C.  Pratt  Estate 

S73.TLG3 
BC38a 


coie>.  T    LT,!:~'  N  ROOM 


MAKERS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 
Edited  by  BASIL  WILLIAMS 


MAKERS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 

Edited  by  BASIL  WILLIAMS 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  by  LORD  CHARNWOOD. 
DELANE  OF  '  THE  TIMES,'  by  SIR  E.  T.  COOK. 
DIAZ,  by  DAVID  HANNAY. 
HERBERT  SPENCER,  by  HUGH  ELLIOT. 
ABDUL  HAMID,  by  SIR  EDWIN  PEARS. 
LI  HUNG  CHANG,  by  J.  O.  P.  BLAND. 
BISMARCK,  by  C.  GRANT  ROBERTSON. 
CECIL  RHODES,  by  BASIL  WILLIAMS. 

Other  Volumes  in  Preparation. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

First  printing,  July  1916  Sixth  printing,  March  1919 

Second  printing,  January  1917  Seventh  printingt  December  ig 
Third  printing,  March  1917  Eighth  printing,  February  1920 
Fourth  printing,  July  1917  Ninth  printing,  May  1920 

Fifth  printing,  January  1919       Tenth  printing,  December  1930 
Eleventh  printing,  January  1921 
Twelfth  printing,  January,  1923 
Thirteenth  printing,  October,  1923 
Fourteenth  printing,  December,  1923 
Fifteenth  drintina.  March.  IQ24 


ruuneenin  priming,  uecemuer, 
Fifteenth  printing,  March,  1924 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

From  a  photograph  made  at  Springfield  soon  after  his  nomination  for 
President 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

BY 

LORD  CHARNWOOD 


THIRD  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1919 
BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


PRINTED    IN    THE    U.   S    A.   BY 

THE  ouiNN  at  BODEN  COMPANY 

RAHWAY.    N.    J 


9\\1 


GENERAL  EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

STATESMEN — even  the  greatest — have  rarely  won  the 
same  unquestioning  recognition  that  falls  to  the  great 
warriors  or  those  supreme  in  science,  art  or  literature. 
Not  in  their  own  lifetime  and  hardly  to  this  day  have 
the  claims  to  supremacy  of  our  own  Oliver  Cromwell, 
William  III.  and  Lord  Chatham  rested  on  so  sure  a 
foundation  as  those  of  a  Marlborough  or  a  Nelson,  a 
Newton,  a  Milton  or  a  Hogarth.    This  is  only  natural. 
A  warrior,  a  man  of  science,  an  artist  or  a  poet  are 
judged   in  the  main  by  definite   achievements,  by  the 
victories  they  have  won  over  foreign  enemies  or  over 
ignorance  and  prejudice,  by  the  joy  and  enlightenment 
they  have  brought  to  the   consciousness   of  their  own 
and  succeeding  generations.      For  the  statesman  there 
is  no  such  exact  measure  of  greatness.    The  greater  he 
is,  the  less  likely  is  his  work  to  be  marked  by  decisive 
achievement  which  can  be  recalled  by  anniversaries  or 
X  signalised  by  some   outstanding  event:  the  chief  work 
p   of  a  great  statesman  rests  in  a  gradual  change  of  direc- 
tion given  to  the  policy  of  his  people,  still  more  in  a 
L   change  of  the  spirit  within  them.    Again,  the  statesman 
must  work  with  a  rough  and  ready  instrument.     The 
soldier  finds  or  makes  his  army  ready  to  yield  unhesitat- 
3  ing  obedience  to  his  commands,  the  sailor  animates  his 
>>  fleet  with  his  own  personal  touch,  and  the  great  man  in 
Q  art,  literature  or  science  is  master  of  his  material,  if  he 
u   can  master  himself.     The   statesman   cannot  mould   a 
^heterogeneous  people,  as  the  men  of  a  well-disciplined 
£tf  army  or  navy  can  be  moulded,  to  respond  to  his  call  and 
xhis  alone.    He  has  to  do  all  his  work  in  a  society  of  which 
QA  a  large  part  cannot  see  his  object  and  another  large  part, 
as  far  as  they  do  see  it,  oppose  it.    Hence  his  work  at 

iii 


iv  GENERAL  EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

the  best  is  often  incomplete  and  he  has  to  be  satisfied 
with  a  rough  average  rather  than  with  his  ideal. 

Lincoln,  one  of  the  few  supreme  statesmen  of  the  last 
three  centuries,  was  no  exception  to  this  rule.  He  was 
misunderstood  and  underrated  in  his  lifetime,  and  even 
yet  has  hardly  come  to  his  own.  For  his  place  is  among 
the  great  men  of  the  earth.  To  them  he  belongs  by 
right  of  his  immense  power  of  hard  work,  his  unfaltering 
pursuit  of  what  seemed  to  him  right,  and  above  all  by 
that  childlike  directness  and  simplicity  of  vision  which 
none  but  the  greatest  carry  beyond  their  earliest  years. 
It  is  fit  that  the  first  considered  attempt  by  an  Englishman 
to  give  a  picture  of  Lincoln,  the  great  hero  of  America's 
struggle  for  the  noblest  cause,  should  come  at  a  time 
when  we  in  England  are  passing  through  as  fiery  a  trial 
for  a  cause  we  feel  to  be  as  noble.  It  is  a  time  when  we 
may  learn  much  from  Lincoln's  failures  and  success,  from 
his  patience,  his  modesty,  his  serene  optimism  and  his 
eloquence,  so  simple  and  so  magnificent. 

BASIL  WILLIAMS. 

BISCOT  CAMP, 
LUTON, 

March,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

PAOF 

GENERAL  EDITOR'S  PREFACE iii 

CHAP. 

I.    BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  I 


II.    THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION    .       .  16 

1.  The  Formation  of  a  National  Government  .  16 

2.  Territorial  Expansion 26 

3.  The  Growth  of  the  Practice  and  Traditions  of 

the  Union  Government  .        .        .        .     •  .  28 

4.  The  Missouri  Compromise       ....  35 

5.  Leaders,  Parties,  and  Tendencies  in  Lincoln's 

Youth 40 

6.  Slavery  and  Southern  Society  ....  52 

7.  Intellectual  Development 59 

III.  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER 62 

i.  Life  at  New  Salem 62 

.  2.  In  the  Illinois  Legislature 69 

3.  Marriage 77 

IV.  LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  IN  RETIREMENT  .       .  90 

1.  The  Mexican  War  and  Lincoln's  Work  in 

Congress 90 

2.  California  and  the  Compromise  of  1850       .  96 

3.  Lincoln  in  Retirement 101 

4.  The  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise       .  109 

V.    THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN 116 

1.  Lincoln's  Return  to  Public  Life       .        .        .  116 

2.  The  Principles  and  the  Oratory  of  Lincoln     .  122 

3.  Lincoln  against  Douglas 137 

4.  John  Brown 150 

5.  The  Election  of  Lincoln  as  President     .       .155 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

VI.    SECESSION 170 

1.  The  Case  of  the  South  against  the  Union       .  170 

2.  The  Progress  of  Secession 184 

3.  The  Inauguration  of  Lincoln    ....  201 

4.  The  Outbreak  of  War 207 

VII.    THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR      .       .       .       .214 

VIII.    THE   OPENING  OF   THE   WAR  AND   LINCOLN'S 

ADMINISTRATION           228 

1.  Preliminary  Stages  of  the  War  .        .        .        .  228 

2.  Bull  Run 245 

3.  Lincoln's  Administration  Generally  .        .        .  250 

4.  Foreign  Policy  and  England     ....  256 

5.  The  Great  Questions  of  Domestic  Policy       .  265 

IX.    THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH     ....  273 

1.  Military  Policy  of  the  North  ....  273 

2.  The  War  in  the  West  up  to  May,  1862       .  279 

3.  The  War  in  the  East  up  to  May,  1863       .  284 

X.    EMANCIPATION           313 

XL    THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY 338 

1.  The  War  to  the  End  of  1863  .       .       .       -338 

2.  Conscription  and  the  Politics  of  1863     .        .  363 

3.  The  War  in  1864 387 

4.  The  Second  Election  of  Lincoln:  1864    .        .  399 

XII.    THE  END 428 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 437 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 461 

INDEX 465 

MAP. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


CHAPTER  I 

BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN 

THE  subject  of  this  memoir  is  revered  by  multitudes 
of  his  countrymen  as  the  preserver  of  their  common- 
wealth. This  reverence  has  grown  with  the  lapse  of  time 
and  the  accumulation  of  evidence.  It  is  blended  with  a 
peculiar  affection,  seldom  bestowed  upon  the  memory  of 
statesmen.  It  is  shared  to-day  by  many  who  remember 
with  no  less  affection  how  their  own  fathers  fought 
against  him.  He  died  with  every  circumstance  of  tragedy, 
yet  it  is  not  the  accident  of  his  death  but  the  purpose  of 
his  life  that  is  remembered. 

Readers  of  history  in  another  country  cannot  doubt 
that  the  praise  so  given  is  rightly  given;  yet  any  bare 
record  of  the  American  Civil  War  may  leave  them 
wondering  why  it  has  been  so  unquestioningly  accorded. 
The  position  and  task  of  the  American  President  in  that 
crisis  cannot  be  understood  from  those  of  other  historic 
rulers  or  historic  leaders  of  a  people;  and  it  may  seem 
as  if,  after  that  tremendous  conflict  in  which  there  was 
no  lack  of  heroes,  some  perverse  whim  had  made  men 
single  out  for  glory  the  puzzled  civil  magistrate  who  sat 
by.  Thus  when  an  English  writer  tells  again  this  tale, 
which  has  been  well  told  already  and  in  which  there  can 
remain  no  important  new  facts  to  disclose,  he  must  en- 
deavour to  make  clear  to  Englishmen  circumstances  and 
conditions  which  are  familiar  to  Americans.  He  will 
incur  the  certainty  that  here  and  there  his  own  perspec- 
tive of  American  affairs  and  persons  will  be  false,  or  his 
own  touch  unsympathetic.  He  had  better  do  this  than 


2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

chronicle  sayings  and  doings  which  to  him  and  to  those 
for  whom  he  writes  have  no  significance.  Nor  should 
the  writer  shrink  too  timidly  from  the  display  of  a 
partisanship  which,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  it  would 
be  insensate  not  to  feel.  The  true  obligation  of  im- 
partiality is  that  he  should  conceal  no  fact  which,  in  his 
own  mind,  tells  against  his  views. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  sixteenth  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  was  born  on  February  12,  1809,  in 
a  log  cabin  on  a  barren  farm  in  the  backwoods  of 
Kentucky,  about  three  miles  west  of  a  place  called 
Hodgensville  in  what  is  now  La  Rue  County. 

Fifty  years  later  when  he  had  been  nominated  for 
the  Presidency  he  was  asked  for  material  for  an  account 
of  his  early  life.  "  Why,"  he  said,  "  it  is  a  great  folly 
to  attempt  to  make  anything  out  of  me  or  my  early  life. 
It  can  all  be  condensed  into  a  single  sentence;  and  that 
sentence  you  will  find  in  Gray's  '  Elegy  ' : — 

'  The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor.' 

That's  my  life,  and  that's  all  you  or  anyone  else  can 
make  out  of  it."  His  other  references  to  early  days  were 
rare.  He  would  repeat  queer  reminiscences  of  the  back- 
woods to  illustrate  questions  of  state;  but  of  his  own 
part  in  that  old  life  he  spoke  reluctantly  and  sadly. 
Nevertheless  there  was  once  extracted  from  him  an  awk- 
ward autobiographical  fragment,  and  his  friends  have 
collected  and  recorded  concerning  his  earlier  years  quite 
as  much  as  is  common  in  great  men's  biographies  or  can 
as  a  rule  be  reproduced  with  its  true  associations.  Thus 
there  are  tales  enough  of  the  untaught  student's  perse- 
verance, and  of  the  boy  giant's  gentleness  and  prowess; 
tales,  too,  more  than  enough  in  proportion,  of  the  fun 
which  varied  but  did  not  pervade  his  existence,  and  of 
the  young  rustic's  occasional  and  somewhat  oafish  pranks. 
But,  in  any  conception  we  may  form  as  to  the  growth  of 
his  mind  and  character,  this  fact  must  have  its  place, 
that  to  the  man  himself  the  thought  of  his  early  life  was 
unattractive,  void  of  self-content  over  the  difficulties 


BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  3 

which  he  had  conquered,  and  void  of  romantic  fondness 
for  vanished  joys  of  youth. 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  his  ancestry  and  family 
connections.  Contempt  for  lowly  beginnings,  abhorrent 
as  it  is  to  any  honest  mind,  would  to  Lincoln's  mind  have 
probably  been  inconceivable,  but  he  lacked  that  interest 
in  ancestry  which  is  generally  marked  in  his  countrymen, 
and  from  talk  of  his  nearer  progenitors  he  seems  to  have 
shrunk  with  a  positive  sadness  of  which  some  causes  will 
soon  be  apparent.  Since  his  death  it  has  been  ascertained 
that  in  1638  one  Samuel  Lincoln  of  Norwich  emigrated 
to  Massachusetts.  Descent  from  him  could  be  claimed 
by  a  prosperous  family  in  Virginia,  several  of  whom 
fought  on  the  Southern  side  in  the  Civil  War.  One 
Abraham  Lincoln,  grandfather  of  the  President  and 
apparently  a  grandson  of  Samuel,  crossed  the  mountains 
from  Virginia  in  1780  and  settled  his  family  in  Kentucky, 
of  which  the  nearer  portions  had  recently  been  explored. 
One  morning  four  years  later  he  was  at  work  near  his 
cabin  with  Mordecai,  Josiah,  and  Thomas,  his  sons,  when 
a  shot  from  the  bushes  near  by  brought  him  down. 
Mordecai  ran  to  the  house,  Josiah  to  a  fort,  which  was 
close  to  them.  Thomas,  aged  six,  stayed  by  his  father's 
body.  Mordecai  seized  a  gun  and,  looking  through  the 
window,  saw  an  Indian  in  war  paint  stooping  to  pick  up 
Thomas.  He  fired  and  killed  the  savage,  and,  when 
Thomas  had  run  into  the  cabin,  continued  firing  at  others 
who  appeared  among  the  bushes.  Shortly  Josiah  re- 
turned with  soldiers  from  the  fort,  and  the  Indians  ran 
off,  leaving  Abraham  the  elder  dead.  Mordecai,  his 
heir-at-law,  prospered.  We  hear  of  him  long  after  as  an 
old  man  of  substance  and  repute  in  Western  Illinois.  He 
had  decided  views  about  Indians.  The  sight  of  a  red- 
skin would  move  him  to  strange  excitement;  he  would 
disappear  into  the  bushes  with  his  gun,  and  his  conscience 
as  a  son  and  a  sportsman  would  not  be  satisfied  till  he 
had  stalked  and  shot  him.  We  are  further  informed  that 
he  was  a  "  good  old  man."  Josiah  also  moved  to  Illinois, 
and  it  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  he  also  was  a  good  old 


4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

man,  and,  as  became  a  good  old  man,  prospered  pretty 
well.  But  President  Lincoln  and  his  sister  knew  neither 
these  excellent  elders  nor  any  other  of  their  father's 
kin. 

And  those  with  whom  the  story  of  his  own  first  twenty- 
one  years  is  bound  up  invite  almost  as  summary  treat- 
ment.    Thomas  Lincoln  never  prospered  like  Mordecai 
and  Josiah,  and  never  seems  to  have  left  the  impress  of 
his  goodness  or  of  anything  else  on  any  man.    But,  while 
learning  to  carpenter  under  one  Joseph  Hanks,  he  mar- 
ried his  employer's  niece  Nancy,  and  by  her  became  the 
father  first  of  a  daughter  Sarah,  and  four  years  later,  at 
the  farm  near  Hodgensville  aforesaid,  of  Abraham,  the 
future  President.    In  1816,  after  several  migrations,  he 
transported  his  household  down  the  Ohio  to  a  spot  on 
the  Indiana  shore,  near  which  the  village  of  Gentryville 
soon  sprang  up.    There  he  abode  till  Abraham  was  nearly 
twenty-one.    When  the  boy  was  eight  his  mother  died, 
leaving  him  in  his  sister's  care;  but  after  a  year  or  so 
Thomas  went  back  alone  to  Kentucky  and,  after  brief 
wooing,  brought  back  a  wife,  Sarah,  the  widow  of  one 
Mr.  Johnston,  whom  he  had  courted  vainly  before  her 
first  marriage.    He  brought  with  her  some  useful  addi- 
tions to  his  household  gear,  and  her  rather  useless  son 
John  Johnston.     Relatives  of  Abraham's  mother  and 
other  old  neighbours — in   particular  John   and   Dennis 
Hanks — accompanied  all  the  family's  migrations.     Ulti- 
mately, in  1830,  they  all  moved  further  west  into  Illinois. 
Meanwhile  Abraham  from  an  early  age  did  such  various 
tasks  for  his  father  or  for  neighbouring  farmers  as  from 
time  to  time  suited  the  father.     When  an  older  lad  he 
was  put  for  a  while  in  charge  of  a  ferry  boat,  and  this 
led  to  the  two  great  adventures  of  his  early  days,  voyages 
with  a  cargo  boat  and  two  mates  down  by  river  to  New 
Orleans.     The   second   and  more  memorable   of  these 
voyages  was  just  after  the  migration  to  Illinois.     He 
returned  from  it  to  a  place  called  New  Salem,  in  Illinois, 
some  distance  from  his  father's  new  farm,  in  expectation 
of  work   in   a   store   which   was   about   to  be   opened. 


BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  5 

Abraham,  by  this  time,  was  of  age,  and  in  accordance 
with  custom  had  been  set  free  to  shift  for  himself. 

Each  of  these  migrations  was  effected  with  great  labour 
in  transportation  of  baggage  (sometimes  in  home-made 
boats),  clearing  of  timber,  and  building;  and  Thomas 
Lincoln  cannot  have  been  wanting  in  the  capacity  for 
great  exertions.  But  historians  have  been  inclined  to  be 
hard  on  him.  He  seems  to  have  been  without  sustained 
industry;  in  any  case  he  had  not  much  money  sense  and 
could  not  turn  his  industry  to  much  account.  Some  hint 
that  he  drank,  but  it  is  admitted  that  most  Kentucky  men 
drank  more.  There  are  indications  that  he  was  a  dutiful 
but  ineffective  father,  chastising  not  too  often  or  too 
much,  but  generally  on  the  wrong  occasion.  He  was  no 
scholar  and  did  not  encourage  his  son  that  way;  but  he 
had  a  great  liking  for  stories.  He  was  of  a  peaceable 
and  inoffensive  temper,  but  on  great  provocation  would 
turn  on  a  bully  with  surprising  and  dire  consequences. 
Old  Thomas,  after  Abraham  was  turned  loose,  continued 
a  migrant,  always  towards  a  supposed  better  farm  further 
west,  always  with  a  mortgage  on  him.  Abraham,  when 
he  was  a  struggling  professional  man,  helped  him  with 
money  as  well  as  he  could.  We  have  his  letter  to  the 
old  man  on  his  death-bed,  a  letter  of  genuine  but  mild 
affection  with  due  words  of  piety.  He  explains  that 
illness  in  his  own  household  makes  it  impossible  for  him 
to  pay  a  last  visit  to  his  father,  and  then,  with  that 
curious  directness  which  is  common  in  the  families  of 
the  poor  and  has  as  a  rule  no  sting,  he  remarks  that  an 
interview,  if  it  had  been  possible,  might  have  given  more 
pain  than  pleasure  to  both.  Everybody  has  insisted  from 
the  first  how  little  Abraham  took  after  his  father,  but 
more  than  one  of  the  traits  attributed  to  Thomas  will 
certainly  reappear. 

Abraham,  as  a  man,  when  for  once  he  spoke  of  his 
mother,  whom  he  very  seldom  mentioned,  spoke  with 
intense  feeling  for  her  motherly  care.  "  I  owe,"  he  said, 
"  everything  that  I  am  to  her."  It  pleased  him  in  this 
talk  to  explain  by  inheritance  from  her  the  mental  quali- 


6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ties  which  distinguished  him  from  the  house  of  Lincoln, 
and  from  others  of  the  house  of  Hanks.  She  was,  he 
said,  the  illegitimate  daughter  of  a  Virginian  gentleman, 
whose  name  he  did  not  know,  but  from  whom  as  he 
guessed  the  peculiar  gifts,  of  which  he  could  not  fail  to 
be  conscious,  were  derived. 

Sarah  his  sister  was  married  at  Gentryville  to  one  Mr. 
Grigsby.  The  Grigsbys  were  rather  great  people,  as 
people  went  in  Gentryville.  It  is  said  to  have  become 
fixed  in  the  boy's  mind  that  the  Grigsbys  had  not  treated 
Sarah  well;  and  this  was  the  beginning  of  certain  woes. 

Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  his  stepmother,  was  good  to  him 
and  he  to  her.  Above  all  she  encouraged  him  in  his  early 
studies,  to  which  a  fretful  housewife  could  have  opposed 
such  terrible  obstacles.  She  lived  to  hope  that  he  might 
not  be  elected  President  for  fear  that  enemies  should 
kill  him,  and  she  lived  to  have  her  fear  fulfilled.  His 
affectionate  care  over  her  continued  to  the  end.  She 
lived  latterly  with  her  son  John  Johnston.  Abraham's 
later  letters  to  this  companion  of  his  youth  deserve  to 
be  looked  up  in  the  eight  large  volumes  called  his  Works, 
for  it  is  hard  to  see  how  a  man  could  speak  or  act  better 
to  an  impecunious  friend  who  would  not  face  his  own 
troubles  squarely.  It  is  sad  that  the  "  ever  your  affec- 
tionate brother  "  of  the  earlier  letters  declines  to  "  yours 
sincerely  "  in  the  last;  but  it  is  an  honest  decline  of  affec- 
tion, for  the  man  had  proved  to  be  cheating  his  mother, 
and  Abraham  had  had  to  stop  it. 

Two  of  the  cousinhood,  Dennis  Hanks,  a  character  of 
comedy,  and  John  Hanks,  the  serious  and  steady  char- 
acter of  the  connection,  deserve  mention.  They  and 
John  Johnston  make  momentary  reappearances  again. 
Otherwise  the  whole  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  kindred  are 
now  out  of  the  story.  They  have  been  disposed  of  thus 
hastily  at  the  outset,  not  because  they  were  discreditable 
or  slight  people,  but  because  Lincoln  himself  when  he 
began  to  find  his  footing  in  the  world  seems  to  have  felt 
sadly  that  his  family  was  just  so  much  to  him  and  no 
more.  The  dearest  of  his  recollections  attached  to  pre- 


BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  7 

mature  death;  the  next  to  chronic  failure.  Rightly  or 
wrongly  (and  we  know  enough  about  heredity  now  to 
expect  any  guess  as  to  its  working  in  a  particular  case 
to  be  wrong)  he  attributed  the  best  that  he  had  inherited 
to  a  licentious  connection  and  a  nameless  progenitor. 
Quite  early  he  must  have  been  intensely  ambitious,  and 
discovered  in  himself  intellectual  power;  but  from  his 
twelfth  year  to  his  twenty-first  there  was  hardly  a  soul 
to  comprehend  that  side  of  him.  This  chill  upon  his 
memory  unmistakably  influenced  the  particular  com- 
plexion of  his  melancholy.  Unmistakably  too  he  early 
learnt  to  think  that  he  was  odd,  that  his  oddity  was  con- 
nected with  his  strength,  that  he  might  be  destined  to 
stand  alone  and  capable  of  so  standing. 

The  life  of  the  farming  pioneer  in  what  was  then  the 
Far  West  afforded  a  fair  prospect  of  laborious  inde- 
pendence. But  at  least  till  Lincoln  was  grown  up,  when 
a  time  of  rapid  growth  and  change  set  in,  it  offered  no 
hope  of  quickly  gotten  wealth,  and  it  imposed  severe 
hardship  on  all.  The  country  was  thickly  wooded;  the 
settler  had  before  him  at  the  outset  heavy  toil  in  clearing 
the  ground  and  in  building  some  rude  shelter, — a  house 
or  just  a  "  half-faced  camp,"  that  is,  a  shed  with  one  side 
open  to  the  weather  such  as  that  in  which  the  Lincoln 
family  passed  their  first  winter  near  Gentryville.  The 
site  once  chosen  and  the  clearing  once  made,  there  was 
no  such  ease  of  cultivation  or  such  certain  fertility  as 
later  settlers  found  yet  further  west  when  the  develop- 
ment of  railways,  of  agricultural  machinery,  and  of 
Eastern  or  European  markets  had  opened  out  to  cultiva- 
tion the  enormous  stretches  of  level  grass  plain  beyond 
the  Mississippi. 

Till  population  had  grown  a  good  deal,  pioneer  families 
were  largely  occupied  in  producing  for  themselves  with 
their  own  hands  what,  in  their  hardy  if  not  always  frugal 
view,  were  the  necessities  and  comforts  of  life.  They 
had  no  Eastern  market  for  their  produce,  for  railways 
did  not  begin  to  be  made  till  1840,  and  it  was  many  years 
before  they  crossed  the  Eastern  mountains.  An  occa- 


8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sional  cargo  was  taken  on  a  flat-bottomed  boat  down  the 
nearest  creek,  as  a  stream  is  called  in  America,  into  the 
Ohio  and  so  by  the  innumerable  windings  of  the  Missis- 
sippi to  New  Orleans;  but  no  return  cargo  could  be 
brought  up  stream.  Knives  and  axes  were  the  most 
precious  objects  to  be  gained  by  trade;  woollen  fabrics 
were  rare  in  the  West,  when  Lincoln  was  born,  and  the 
white  man  and  woman,  like  the  red  whom  they  had  dis- 
placed, were  chiefly  dressed  in  deer  skins.  The  woods 
abounded  in  game,  and  in  the  early  stages  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  West  a  man  could  largely  support  himself  by 
his  gun.  The  cold  of  every  winter  is  there  great,  and 
an  occasional  winter  made  itself  long  remembered,  like 
the  "  winter  of  the  deep  snow  "  in  Illinois,  by  the  havoc 
of  its  sudden  onset  and  the  suffering  of  its  long  duration. 
The  settling  of  a  forest  country  was  accompanied  here 
as  elsewhere  by  the  occasional  ravages  of  strange  and 
destructive  pestilences  and  the  constant  presence  of 
malaria.  Population  was  soon  thick  enough  for  occa- 
sional gatherings,  convivial  or  religious,  and  in  either 
case  apt  to  be  wild,  but  for  long  it  was  not  thick  enough 
for  the  life  of  most  settlers  to  be  other  than  lonely  as 
well  as  hard. 

Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  teens  grew  very  fast,  and  by 
nineteen  he  was  nearly  six  foot  four.  His  weight  was 
never  quite  proportionate  to  this.  His  ungainly  figure, 
with  long  arms  and  large  hands  and  relatively  small 
development  of  chest,  and  the  strange  deep-cut  linea- 
ments of  his  face  were  perhaps  the  evidence  of  unfit 
(sometimes  insufficient)  food  in  these  years  of  growth. 
But  his  muscular  strength  was  great,  and  startling  statisti- 
cal tales  are  told  of  the  weight  he  could  lift  and  the  force 
of  his  blows  with  a  mallet  or  an  axe.  To  a  gentle  and 
thoughtful  boy  with  secret  ambition  in  him  such  strength 
is  a  great  gift,  and  in  such  surroundings  most  obviously 
so.  Lincoln  as  a  lad  was  a  valuable  workman  at  the 
varied  tasks  that  came  his  way,  without  needing  that 
intense  application  to  manual  pursuits  which  the  bent  of 
his  mind  made  irksome  to  him.  And  he  was  a  person 


BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  9 

of  high  consideration  among  the  lads  of  his  age  and 
company.  The  manners  of  the  people  then  settling  in 
Indiana  and  Illinois  had  not  the  extreme  ferocity  for 
which  Kentucky  had  earlier  been  famous,  and  which  crops 
up  here  and  there  in  frontier  life  elsewhere.  All  the 
same,  as  might  naturally  be  supposed,  they  shared  Plato's 
opinion  that  youths  and  men  in  the  prime  of  life  should 
settle  their  differences  with  their  fists.  Young  Lincoln's 
few  serious  combats  were  satisfactorily  decisive,  and 
neither  they  nor  his  friendly  wrestling  bouts  ended  in  the 
quarrels  which  were  too  common  among  his  neighbours. 
Thus,  for  all  his  originality  and  oddity,  he  early  grew 
accustomed  to  mix  in  the  sort  of  company  he  was  likely 
to  meet,  without  either  inward  shrinking  or  the  need  of 
conscious  self-assertion. 

In  one  thing  he  stood  aloof  from  the  sports  of  his 
fellows.  Most  backwoodsmen  were  bred  to  the  gun; 
he  has  told  us  that  he  shot  a  turkey  when  he  was  eight 
and  never  afterwards  shot  at  all.  There  is  an  early  tale 
of  his  protests  against  an  aimless  slaughter  of  mud 
turtles;  and  it  may  be  guessed  that  the  dislike  of  all 
killing,  which  gave  him  sore  trouble  later,  began  when 
he  was  young.  Tales  survive  of  his  kindness  to  helpless 
men  and  animals.  It  marks  the  real  hardness  of  his 
surroundings,  and  their  hardening  effect  on  many,  that 
his  exertions  in  saving  a  drunken  man  from  death  in  the 
snow  are  related  with  apparent  surprise.  Some  tales 
of  his  helping  a  pig  stuck  in  a  bog  or  a  dog  on  an  ice 
floe  and  the  like  seem  to  indicate  a  curious  and  lasting 
trait.  These  things  seem  not  to  have  been  done  spon- 
taneously, but  on  mature  reflection  after  he  had  passed 
unheeding  by.  He  grew  to  be  a  man  of  prompt  action 
in  circumstances  of  certain  kinds;  but  generally  his  impulse 
was  slow  and  not  very  sure.  Taste  and  the  minor  sensi- 
bilities were  a  little  deficient  in  him.  As  a  lady  once 
candidly  explained  to  him,  he  was  not  ready  with  little 
gracious  acts.  But  rare  occasions,  such  as  can  arouse  a 
passionate  sense  of  justice,  would  kindle  his  slow,  kind 
nature  with  a  sudden  fire. 


io  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  total  amount  of  his  schooling,  at  the  several  brief 
periods  for  which  there  happened  to  have  been  a  school 
accessible  and  facility  to  get  to  it,  was  afterwards  com- 
puted by  himself  at  something  under  twelve  months. 
With  this  slight  help  distributed  over  the  years  from  his 
eighth  to  his  fifteenth  birthday  he  taught  himself  to  read, 
write,  and  do  sums.  The  stories  of  the  effort  and  pain- 
ful shifts,  by  which  great  men  accomplish  this  initial 
labour  almost  unhelped,  have  in  all  cases  the  same  pathos, 
and  have  a  certain  sameness  in  detail.  Having  learnt 
to  read  he  had  the  following  books  within  his  reach: 
the  Bible,  "  ^Esop's  Fables,"  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  the 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  a  "  History  of  the  United  States," 
and  Weems'  "  Life  of  Washington."  Later  on  the  fancy 
took  him  to  learn  the  laws  of  his  State,  and  he  obtained 
the  "  Laws  of  Indiana."  These  books  he  did  read,  and 
read  again,  and  pondered,  not  with  any  dreamy  or  purely 
intellectual  interest,  but  like  one  who  desires  the  weapon 
of  learning  for  practical  ends,  and  desires  also  to  have 
patterns  of  what  life  should  be.  As  already  said,  his 
service  as  a  labourer  could  be  considerable,  and  when 
something  stirred  his  ambition  to  do  a  task  quickly  his 
energy  could  be  prodigious.  But  "  bone  idle  is  what  I 
called  him,"  was  the  verdict  long  after  of  one,  perhaps 
too  critical,  employer.  "  I  found  him,"  he  said,  "  cocked 
up  on  a  haystack  with  a  book.  '  What  are  you  reading?  ' 
I  said.  '  I'm  not  reading,  I'm  studying,'  says  he.  '  What 
are  you  studying?  '  says  I.  '  Law,'  says  he,  as  proud  as 
Cicero.  *  Great  God  Almighty!'  said  I."  The  boy's 
correction,  "  studying  "  for  "  reading,"  was  impertinent, 
but  probably  sound.  To  be  equally  sound,  we  must 
reckon  among  his  educational  facilities  the  abundant 
stories  which  came  his  way  in  a  community  which,  how- 
ever unlettered,  was  certainly  not  dull-spirited;  the  occa- 
sional newspaper;  the  rare  lectures  or  political  meetings; 
the  much  more  frequent  religious  meetings,  with  preachers 
who  taught  a  grim  doctrine,  but  who  preached  with 
vigour  and  sometimes  with  the  deepest  sincerity;  the 
hymns  often  of  great  emotional  power  ever  a  simple 


BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  n 

congregation — Cowper's  "  There  is  a  fountain  filled  with 
blood,"  is  one  recorded  favourite  among  them;  the  songs, 
far  other  than  hymns,  which  Dennis  Hanks  and  his  other 
mates  would  pick  up  or  compose;  and  the  practice  in 
rhetoric  and  the  art  of  exposition,  which  he  unblushingly 
afforded  himself  before  audiences  of  fellow  labourers 
who  welcomed  the  jest  and  the  excuse  for  stopping  work. 
The  achievement  of  the  self-taught  man  remains  wonder- 
ful, but,  if  he  surmounts  his  difficulties  at  all,  some  of 
his  limitations  may  turn  to  sheer  advantage.  There  is 
some  advantage  merely  in  being  driven  to  make  the  most 
of  few  books;  great  advantage  in  having  one's  choice 
restricted  by  circumstances  to  good  books;  great  advan- 
tage too  in  the  consciousness  of  untrained  faculty  which 
leaves  a  man  capable  in  mature  life  of  deliberately  under- 
taking mental  discipline. 

Along  with  the  legends  and  authentic  records  of  his 
self-training,  signs  of  an  ambition  which  showed  itself 
early  and  which  was  from  the  first  a  clean  and  a  high 
ambition,  there  are  also  other  legends  showing  Lincoln 
as  a  naughty  boy  among  naughty  boys.  The  selection 
here  made  from  these  lacks  refinement,  and  the  reader 
must  note  that  this  was  literally  a  big,  naughty  boy,  not 
a  man  who  had  grown  stiff  in  coarseness  and  ill-nature. 
First  it  must  be  recalled  that  Abraham  bore  a  grudge 
against  the  Grigsbys,  an  honourable  grudge  in  its  origin 
and  perhaps  the  only  grudge  he  ever  bore.  There  had 
arisen  from  this  a  combat,  of  which  the  details  might 
displease  the  fastidious,  but  which  was  noble  in  so  far 
that  Abraham  rescued  a  weaker  combatant  who  was  over- 
matched. But  there  ensued  something  more  displeasing, 
a  series  of  lampoons  by  Abraham,  in  prose  and  a  kind 
of  verse.  These  were  gross  and  silly  enough,  though 
probably  to  the  taste  of  the  public  which  he  then  ad- 
dressed, but  it  is  the  sequel  that  matters.  In  a  work 
called  "  The  First  Chronicles  of  Reuben,"  it  is  related 
how  Reuben  and  Josiah,  the  sons  of  Reuben  Grigsby  the 
elder,  took  to  themselves  wives  on  the  same  day.  By 
local  custom  the  bridal  feast  took  place  and  the  two 


12  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

young  couples  began  their  married  careers  under  the  roof 
of  the  bridegrooms'  father.  Moreover,  it  was  the  custom 
that,  at  a  certain  stage  in  the  celebrations,  the  brides 
should  be  escorted  to  their  chambers  by  hired  attendants 
who  shortly  after  conducted  the  bridegrooms  thither. 
On  this  occasion  some  sense  of  mischief  afoot  disturbed 
the  heart  of  Mrs.  Reuben  Grigsby  the  elder,  and,  hasten- 
ing upstairs,  just  after  the  attendants  had  returned,  she 
cried  out  in  a  loud  voice  and  to  the  great  consternation 
of  all  concerned,  "  Why,  Reuben,  you're  in  bed  with  the 
wrong  wife !  "  The  historian  who,  to  the  manifest 
annoyance  of  Lincoln's  other  biographers,  has  preserved 
this  and  much  other  priceless  information,  infers  that 
Abraham,  who  was  not  invited  to  the  feast,  had  plotted 
this  domestic  catastrophe  and  won  over  the  attendants 
to  his  evil  purpose.  This  is  not  a  certain  inference,  nor  13 
it  absolutely  beyond  doubt  that  the  event  recorded  in 
;t  The  First  Chronicles  of  Reuben  "  ever  happened  at  all. 
What  is  certain  is  that  these  Chronicles  themselves,  com- 
posed in  what  purports  to  be  the  style  of  Scripture,  were 
circulated  for  the  joint  edification  of  the  proud  race  of 
Grigsby  and  of  their  envious  neighbours  in  the  hand' 
writing  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  then  between  seventeen  and 
eighteen.  Not  without  reason  does  an  earlier  manuscript 
of  the  same  author  conclude,  after  several  correct 
exercises  in  compound  subtraction,  with  the  distich: — 

"  Abraham  Lincoln,  his  hand  and  pen, 
He  will  be  good,  but  God  knows  when." 

Not  to  be  too  solemn  about  a  tale  which  has  here  been 
told  for  the  whimsical  fancy  of  its  unseemliness  and 
because  it  is  probably  the  worst  that  there  is  to  tell,  we 
may  here  look  forward  and  face  the  well-known  fact  that 
the  unseemliness  in  talk  of  rough,  rustic  boys  flavoured 
the  great  President's  conversation  through  life.  It  is 
well  to  be  plain  about  this.  Lincoln  was  quite  without 
any  elegant  and  sentimental  dissoluteness,  such  as  can  be 
attractively  portrayed.  His  life  was  austere  and  seems 
to  have  been  so  from  the  start.  He  had  that  shy 


BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  13 

reverence  for  womanhood  which  is  sometimes  acquired 
as  easily  in  rough  as  in  polished  surroundings  and  often 
quite  as  steadily  maintained.  The  testimony  of  his  early 
companions,  along  with  some  fragments  of  the  boy's 
feeble  but  sincere  attempts  at  verse,  shows  that  he 
acquired  it  young.  But  a  large  part  of  the  stories  and 
pithy  sayings  for  which  he  was  famous  wherever  he  went, 
but  of  which  when  their  setting  is  lost  it  is  impossible  to 
recover  the  enjoyment,  were  undeniably  coarse,  and 
naturally  enough  this  fact  was  jarring  to  some  of  those 
in  America  who  most  revered  him.  It  should  not  really 
be  hard,  in  any  comprehensive  view  of  his  character  and 
the  circumstances  in  which  it  unfolded  itself,  to  trace  in 
this  bent  of  his  humour  something  not  discordant  with 
the  widening  sympathy  and  deepening  tenderness  of  his 
nature.  The  words  of  his  political  associate  in  Illinois, 
Mr.  Leonard  Swett,  afterwards  Attorney-General  of  the 
United  States,  may  suffice.  He  writes :  "  Almost  any 
man,  who  will  tell  a  very  vulgar  story,  has,  in  a  degree, 
a  vulgar  mind.  But  it  was  not  so  with  him;  with  all  his 
purity  of  character  and  exalted  morality  and  sensibility, 
which  no  man  can  doubt,  when  hunting  for  wit  he  had 
no  ability  to  discriminate  between  the  vulgar  and  refined 
substances  from  which  he  extracted  it.  It  was  the  wit 
he  was  after,  the  pure  jewel,  and  he  would  pick  it  up 
out  of  the  mud  or  dirt  just  as  readily  as  from  a  parlour 
table."  In  any  case  his  best  remembered  utterances  of 
this  order,  when  least  fit  for  print,  were  both  wise  and 
incomparably  witty,  and  in  any  case  they  did  not  prevent 
grave  gentlemen,  who  marvelled  at  them  rather  uncom- 
fortably, from  receiving  the  deep  impression  of  what 
they  called  his  pure-mindedness. 

One  last  recollection  of  Lincoln's  boyhood  has  ap- 
pealed, beyond  any  other,  to  some  of  his  friends  as 
prophetic  of  things  to  come.  Mention  has  already  been 
made  of  his  two  long  trips  down  the  Mississippi.  With 
the  novel  responsibilities  which  they  threw  on  him,  and 
the  novel  sights  and  company  which  he  met  all  the  way 
to  the  strange,  distant  city  of  New  Orleans,  they  must 


14  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

have  been  great  experiences.  Only  two  incidents  of 
them  are  recorded.  In  the  first  voyage  he  and  his  mates 
had  been  disturbed  at  night  by  a  band  of  negro  marauder? 
and  had  had  a  sharp  fight  in  repelling  them,  but  in  the 
second  voyage  he  met  with  the  negro  in  a  way  that  to 
him  was  more  memorable.  He  and  the  young  fellows 
with  him  saw,  among  the  sights  of  New  Orleans,  negroes 
chained,  maltreated,  whipped  and  scourged;  they  came  in 
their  rambles  upon  a  slave  auction  where  a  fine  mulatto 
girl  was  being  pinched  and  prodded  and  trotted  up  and 
down  the  room  like  a  horse  to  show  how  she  moved, 
that  "  bidders  might  satisfy  themselves,"  as  the  auc- 
tioneer said,  of  the  soundness  of  the  article  to  be  sold. 
John  Johnston  and  John  Hanks  and  Abraham  Lincoln 
saw  these  sights  with  the  unsophisticated  eyes  of  honest 
country  lads  from  a  free  State.  In  their  home  circle 
it  seems  that  slavery  was  always  spoken  of  with  horror. 
One  of  them  had  a  tenacious  memory  and  a  tenacious 
will.  "  Lincoln  saw  it,"  John  Hanks  said  long  after,  and 
other  men's  recollections  of  Lincoln's  talk  confirmed  him 
— "Lincoln  saw  it;  his  heart  bled;  said  nothing  much, 
was  silent.  I  can  say,  knowing  it,  that  it  was  on  this 
trip  that  he  formed  his  opinion  of  slavery.  It  ran  its 
iron  into  him  then  and  there,  May,  1831.  I  have  heard 
him  say  so  often."  Perhaps  in  other  talks  old  John 
Hanks  dramatised  his  early  remembrances  a  little;  he 
related  how  at  the  slave  auction  Lincoln  said,  "  By  God, 
boys,  let's  get  away  from  this.  If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to 
hit  that  thing,  I'll  hit  it  hard." 

The  youth,  who  probably  did  not  express  his  indigna- 
tion in  these  prophetic  words,  was  in  fact  chosen  to  deal 
"  that  thing "  a  blow  from  which  it  seems  unlikely  to 
recover  as  a  permitted  institution  among  civilised  men, 
and  it  is  certain  that  from  this  early  time  the  thought 
of  slavery  never  ceased  to  be  hateful  to  him.  Yet  it  is 
not  in  the  light  of  a  crusader  against  this  special  evil 
that  we  are  to  regard  him.  When  he  came  back  from 
this  voyage  to  his  new  home  in  Illinois  he  was  simply  a 
youth  ambitious  of  an  honourable  part  in  the  life  of  the 


15 

young  country  of  which  he  was  proud.  We  may  regard, 
and  he  himself  regarded,  the  liberation  of  the  slaves, 
which  will  always  be  associated  with  his  name,  as  a  part 
of  a  larger  work,  the  restoration  of  his  country  to  its 
earliest  and  noblest  tradition,  which  alone  gave  perma- 
nence or  worth  to  its  existence  as  a  nation. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION 

I.  The  Formation  of  a  National  Government. 

IT  is  of  course  impossible  to  understand  the  life  of  a 
politician  in  another  country  without  study  of  its  condi- 
tions and  its  past.  In  the  case  of  America  this  study  is 
especially  necessary,  not  only  because  the  many  points 
of  comparison  between  that  country  and  our  own  are  apt 
to  conceal  profound  differences  of  customs  and  institu- 
tions, but  because  the  broader  difference  between  a  new 
country  and  an  old  is  in  many  respects  more  important 
than  we  conceive.  But  in  the  case  of  Lincoln  there  is 
peculiar  reason  for  carrying  such  a  study  far  back.  He 
himself  appealed  unceasingly  to  a  tradition  of  the  past. 
In  tracing  the  causes  which  up  to  his  time  had  tended  to 
conjoin  the  United  States  more  closely  and  the  cause 
which  more  recently  had  begun  to  threaten  them  with 
disruption,  we  shall  be  examining  the  elements  of  the 
problem  with  which  it  was  his  work  in  life  to  deal. 

The  "  Thirteen  United  States  of  America  "  which  in 
1776  declared  their  independence  of  Great  Britain  were 
so  many  distinct  Colonies  distributed  unevenly  along  1,300 
miles  of  the  Atlantic  coast.  These  thirteen  Colonies 
can  easily  be  identified  on  the  map  when  it  is  explained 
that  Maine  in  the  extreme  north  was  then  an  unsettled 
forest  tract  claimed  by  the  Colony  of  Massachusetts,  that 
Florida  in  the  extreme  south  belonged  to  Spain,  and  that 
Vermont,  which  soon  after  asserted  its  separate  ex- 
istence, was  a  part  of  the  State  of  New  York.  Almost 
every  one  of  these  Colonies  had  its  marked  peculiarities 
and  its  points  of  antagonism  as  against  its  nearest 
neighbours;  but  they  fell  into  three  groups.  We  may 
broadly  contrast  the  five  southernmost,  which  included 

16 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION        17 

those  which  were  the  richest  and  of  which  in  many  ways 
the  leading  State  was  Virginia,  with  the  four  (or  later 
six)  northernmost  States  known  collectively  as  New 
England.  Both  groups  had  at  first  been  colonised  by  the 
same  class,  the  smaller  landed  gentry  of  England  with 
a  sprinkling  of  well-to-do  traders,  though  the  South 
received  later  a  larger  number  of  poor  and  shiftless 
immigrants  than  the  North,  and  the  North  attracted  a 
larger  number  of  artisans.  The  physical  conditions  of  the 
South  led  to  the  growth  of  large  farms,  or  "  plantations  " 
as  they  were  called,  and  of  a  class  of  large  proprietors; 
negro  slaves  thrived  there  and  were  useful  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  tobacco,  indigo,  rice,  and  later  of  cotton.  The 
North  continued  to  be  a  country  of  small  farms,  but  its 
people  turned  also  to  fishery  and  to  commerce,  and  the 
sea  carrying  trade  became  early  its  predominant  interest, 
yielding  place  later  on  to  manufacturing  industries.  The 
South  was  attached  in  the  main,  though  by  no  means 
altogether,  to  the  Church  of  England;  New  England 
owed  its  origin  to  successive  immigrations  of  Puritans 
often  belonging  to  the  Congregational  or  Independent 
body;  with  the  honourable  exception  of  Rhode  Island 
these  communities  showed  none  of  the  liberal  and  tolerant 
spirit  which  the  Independents  of  the  old  country  often 
developed;  they  manifested,  however,  the  frequent  vir- 
tues as  well  as  the  occasional  defects  of  the  Puritan 
character.  The  middle  group  of  Colonies  were  of  more 
mixed  origin;  New  York  and  New  Jersey  had  been  Dutch 
possessions,  Delaware  was  partly  Swedish,  Pennsylvania 
had  begun  as  a  Quaker  settlement  but  included  many 
different  elements;  in  physical  and  economic  conditions 
they  resembled  on  the  whole  New  England,  but  they 
lacked,  some  of  them  conspicuously,  the  Puritan  disci- 
pline, and  had  a  certain  cosmopolitan  character.  Though 
there  were  sharp  antagonisms  among  the  northern  settle- 
ments, and  the  southern  settlements  were  kept  distinct 
by  the  great  distances  between  them,  the  tendency  of 
events  was  to  soften  these  minor  differences.  But  it 
greatly  intensified  one  broad  distinction  which  marked 


i8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

off  the  southern  group  from  the  middle  and  the  northern 
groups  equally. 

Nevertheless,  before  independence  was  thought  of 
there  were  common  characteristics  distinguishing  Ameri- 
cans from  English  people.  They  are  the  better  worth 
an  attempt  to  note  them  because,  as  a  historian  of  America 
wrote  some  years  ago,  "  the  typical  American  of  1900  is 
on  the  whole  more  like  his  ancestor  of  1775  than  is  the 
typical  Englishman."  In  all  the  Colonies  alike  the  condi- 
tions of  life  encouraged  personal  independence.  In  all 
alike  they  also  encouraged  a  special  kind  of  ability  which 
may  be  called  practical  rather  than  thorough — that  of 
a  workman  who  must  be  competent  at  many  tasks  and 
has  neither  opportunity  nor  inducement  to  become  perfect 
at  one;  that  of  the  scientific  man  irresistibly  drawn  to 
inventions  which  shall  make  life  less  hard;  that  of  the 
scholar  or  philosopher  who  must  supply  the  new  com- 
munity's need  of  lawyers  and  politicians. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  colonists'  forefathers 
had  come  to  their  new  home  with  distinct  aspirations  for 
a  better  ordering  of  human  life  than  the  old  world  al- 
lowed, and  it  has  frequently  been  noticed  that  Americans 
from  the  first  have  been  more  prone  than  their  kinsmen 
in  England  to  pay  homage  to  large  ideal  conceptions. 
This  is  a  disposition  not  entirely  favourable  to  painstaking 
and  sure-footed  reform.  The  idealist  American  is  per- 
haps too  ready  to  pay  himself  with  fine  words,  which  the 
subtler  and  shyer  Englishman  avoids  and  rather  too 
readily  sets  down  as  insincere  in  others.  Moreover,  this 
tendency  is  quite  consistent  with  the  peculiar  conservatism 
characteristic  of  America.  New  conditions  in  which  tra- 
dition gave  no  guidance  called  forth  great  inventive 
powers  and  bred  a  certain  pride  in  novelty.  An  American 
economist  has  written  in  a  sanguine  humour,  "  The 
process  of  transplanting  removes  many  of  the  shackles 
of  custom  and  tradition  which  retard  the  progress  of 
older  countries.  In  a  new  country  things  cannot  be  done 
in  the  old  way,  and  therefore  they  are  probably  done  in 
the  best  way."  But  a  new  country  is  always  apt  to  cling 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       19 

with  tenacity  to  those  old  things  for  which  it  still  has  use ; 
and  a  remote  and  undeveloped  country  does  not  fully 
share  the  continual  commerce  in  ideas  which  brings  about 
change  (and,  in  the  main,  advance)  in  the  old  world. 
The  conservatism  which  these  causes  tend  to  produce  has 
in  any  case  been  marked  in  America.  Thus,  as  readers 
of  Lowell  are  aware,  in  spite  of  the  ceaseless  efflorescence 
of  the  modern  slang  of  America,  the  language  of  America 
is  in  many  respects  that  of  an  older  England  than  ours, 
and  the  like  has  all  along  been  true  of  important  litera- 
ture, and  still  more  of  oratory,  in  America.  Moreover, 
as  the  sentences  which  have  just  been  quoted  may  suggest, 
the  maxim  that  has  once  hit  the  occasion,  or  the  new 
practice  or  expedient  once  necessitated  by  the  conditions 
of  the  moment,  has  been  readily  hallowed  as  expressing 
the  wisdom  of  the  ages.  An  Englishman  will  quote  Burke 
as  he  would  quote  Demosthenes  or  Plato,  but  Americans 
have  been  apt  to  quote  their  elder  statesmen  as  they  would 
quote  the  Bible.  In  like  manner  political  practices  of  ac- 
cidental origin — for  instance,  that  a  representative  should 
be  an  inhabitant  of  the  place  he  represents — acquire  in 
America  something  like  the  force  of  constitutional  law. 
In  this  connection  we  must  recall  the  period  at  which 
the  earliest  settlers  came  from  England,  and  the  political 
heritage  which  they  consequently  brought  with  them. 
This  heritage  included  a  certain  aptitude  for  local  gov- 
ernment, which  was  fostered  in  the  south  by  the  rise  of 
a  class  of  large  landowners  and  in  the  north  by  the  Con- 
gregational Church  system.  It  included  also  a  great 
tenacity  of  the  subject's  rights  as  against  the  State — the 
spirit  of  Hampden  refusing  payment  of  ship-money — 
and  a  disposition  to  look  on  the  law  and  the  Courts  as  the 
bulwarks  of  such  rights  against  Government.  But  it  did 
not  include — and  this  explains  the  real  meaning  of  the 
War  of  Independence — any  sort  of  feeling  of  allegiance 
to  a  Parliament  which  represented  Great  Britain  only, 
and  which  had  gained  its  position  even  in  Great  Britain 
since  the  fathers  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  left 
home.  Nor  did  it  include — and  this  was  of  great  im- 


20  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

portance  in  its  influence  on  the  form  of  the  Constitution — 
any  real  understanding  of  or  any  aptitude  for  the  English 
Parliamentary  Government,  under  which  the  leaders  of 
the  legislative  body  and  the  advisers  of  the  Crown  in  its 
executive  functions  are  the  same  men,  and  under  which 
the  elected  persons,  presumed  for  the  moment  to 
represent  the  people,  are  allowed  for  that  moment  an 
almost  unfettered  supremacy. 

Thus  there  was  much  that  made  it  easy  for  the 
Colonies  to  combine  in  the  single  act  of  repudiating 
British  sovereignty,  yet  the  characteristics  which  may 
be  ascribed  to  them  in  common  were  not  such  as  inclined 
them  or  fitted  them  to  build  up  a  great  new  unity. 

The  Colonies,  however,  backed  up  by  the  British 
Government  with  the  vigour  which  Chatham  imparted 
to  it,  had  acted  together  against  a  common  danger  from 
the  French.  When  the  States,  as  we  must  now  call  them, 
acted  together  against  the  British  Government  they  did 
so  in  name  as  "  United  States,"  and  they  shortly  pro- 
ceeded to  draw  up  "  Articles  of  Confederation  and  Per- 
petual Union."  But  it  was  union  of  a  feeble  kind.  The 
separate  government  of  each  State,  in  its  internal  affairs, 
was  easy  to  provide  for ;  representative  institutions  always 
existed,  and  no  more  change  was  needed  than  to  substi- 
tute elected  officers  for  the  Governors  and  Councillors 
formerly  appointed  by  the  Crown.  For  the  Union  a 
Congress  was  provided  which  was  to  represent  all  the 
States  in  dealings  with  the  outside  world,  but  it  was  a 
Government  with  no  effective  powers  except  such  as  each 
separate  State  might  independently  choose  to  lend  it.  It 
might  wage  war  with  England,  but  it  could  not  effectually 
control  or  regularly  pay  the  military  service  of  its  own 
citizens;  it  might  make  a  treaty  of  peace  with  England, 
but  it  could  not  enforce  on  its  citizens  distasteful  obliga- 
tions of  that  treaty.  Such  an  ill-devised  machine  would 
have  worked  well  enough  for  a  time,  if  the  Union  Gov- 
ernment could  have  attached  to  itself  popular  sentiments 
of  honour  and  loyalty.  But  the  sentiments  were  not 
there;  and  it  worked  badly. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       21 

When  once  we  were  reconciled  to  a  defeat  which 
proved  good  for  us,  it  became  a  tradition  among  English 
writers  to  venerate  the  American  Revolution.  Later 
English  historians  have  revolted  from  this  indiscriminate 
veneration.  They  insist  on  another  side  of  the  facts: 
on  the  hopelessness  of  the  American  cause  but  for  the 
commanding  genius  of  Washington  and  his  moral  au- 
thority, and  for  the  command  which  France  and  Spain 
obtained  of  the  seas;  on  the  petty  quarrelsomeness  with 
which  the  rights  of  the  Colonists  were  urged,  and  the 
meanly  skilful  agitation  which  forced  on  the  final  rup- 
ture; on  the  lack  of  sustained  patriotic  effort  during  the 
war;  on  the  base  cruelty  and  dishonesty  with  which  the 
loyal  minority  were  persecuted  and  the  private  rights 
guaranteed  by  the  peace  ignored.  It  does  not  concern  us 
to  ascertain  the  precise  justice  in  this  displeasing  picture; 
no  man  now  regrets  the  main  result  of  the  Revolution, 
and  we  know  that  a  new  country  is  a  new  country,  and 
that  there  was  much  in  the  circumstances  of  the  war  to 
encourage  indiscipline  and  ferocity.  But  the  fact  that 
there  is  cause  for  such  an  indictment  bears  in  two  ways 
upon  our  present  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  there  has  been  a  tendency  both  in 
England  and  in  America  to  look  at  this  history  upside 
down.  The  epoch  of  the  Revolution  and  the  Constitution 
has  been  regarded  as  a  heroic  age — wherein  lived  the 
elder  Brutus,  Mucius  Scaevola,  Clselia  and  the  rest — to 
be  followed  by  almost  continuous  disappointment,  dis- 
illusionment and  decline.  A  more  pleasing  and  more 
bracing  view  is  nearer  to  the  historic  truth.  The  faults 
of  a  later  time  were  largely  survivals,  and  the  later 
history  is  largely  that  of  growth  though  in  the  face  of 
terrific  obstacles  and  many  influences  that  favoured  decay. 
The  nobility  of  the  Revolution  in  the  eighteenth  century 
may  be  rated  higher  or  lower,  but  in  the  Civil  War,  in 
which  the  elder  brothers  of  so  many  men  now  living  bore 
their  part,  the  people  of  the  North  and  of  the  South  alike 
displayed  far  more  heroic  qualities. 

In  the  second  place,  the  War  of  Independence  and  of 


22  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  Revolution  lacked  some  of  the  characteristics  of  other 
national  uprisings.  It  was  not  a  revolt  against  grievous 
oppression  or  against  a  wholly  foreign  domination,  but 
against  a  political  system  which  the  people  mildly  re- 
sented and  which  only  statesmen  felt  to  be  pernicious 
and  found  to  be  past  cure.  The  cause  appealed  to  far- 
seeing  political  aspiration  and  appealed  also  to  turbulent 
and  ambitious  spirits  and  to  whatever  was  present  of 
a  merely  revolutionary  temper,  but  the  ordinary  law- 
abiding  man  who  minded  his  own  business  was  not  greatly 
moved  one  way  or  the  other  in  his  heart. 

The  subsequent  movement  which,  in  a  few  years  after 
independence  was  secured,  gave  the  United  States  a  na- 
tional and  a  working  Constitution  was  altogether  the 
work  of  a  few,  to  which  popular  movement  contributed 
nothing.  Of  popular  aspiration  for  unity  there  was 
none.  Statesmen  knew  that  the  new  nation  or  group  of 
nations  lay  helpless  between  pressing  dangers  from 
abroad  and  its  own  financial  difficulties.  They  saw  clearly 
that  they  must  create  a  Government  of  the  Union  which 
could  exercise  directly  upon  the  individual  American 
citizen  an  authority  like  that  of  the  Government  of  his 
own  State.  They  did  this,  but  with  a  reluctant  and  half- 
convinced  public  opinion  behind  them. 

The  makers  of  the  Constitution  earned  in  a  manner 
the  full  praise  that  has  ever  since  been  bestowed  on 
them.  But  they  did  not,  as  it  has  often  been  suggested 
they  did,  create  a  sort  of  archetype  and  pattern  for  all 
Governments  that  may  hereafter  partake  of  a  federal 
character.  Nor  has  the  curious  machine  which  they  de- 
vised— with  its  balanced  opposition  between  two  legisla- 
tive chambers,  between  the  whole  Legislature  and  the 
independent  executive  power  of  the  President,  between 
the  governing  power  of  the  moment  and  the  permanent 
expression  of  the  people's  will  embodied  in  certain  almost 
unalterable  laws — worked  conspicuously  better  than  other 
political  constitutions.  The  American  Constitution  owes 
its  peculiarities  partly  to  the  form  which  the  State  Gov- 
ernments had  naturally  taken,  and  partly  to  sheer  mis- 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       23 

understanding  of  the  British  Constitution,  but  much  more 
to  the  want  at  the  time  of  any  strong  sense  of  national 
unity  and  to  the  existence  of  a  good  deal  of  dislike  to  all 
government  whatsoever.  The  sufficient  merit  of  its 
founders  was  that  of  patient  and  skilful  diplomatists, 
who,  undeterred  by  difficulties,  found  out  the  most  satis- 
factory settlement  that  had  a  chance  of  being  accepted 
by  the  States. 

So  the  Colonies,  which  in  1776  ha.d  declared  their  in- 
dependence of  Great  Britain  under  the  name  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  entered  in  1789  into  the  possession 
of  machinery  of  government  under  which  their  unity  and 
independence  could  be  maintained. 

It  will  be  well  at  once  to  describe  those  features  of 
the  Constitution  which  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  later 
to  bear  in  mind.  It  is  generally  known  that  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  is  an  elected  officer — elected 
by  what  operates,  though  intended  to  act  otherwise, 
as  a  popular  vote.  During  the  four  years  of  his  office 
he  might  roughly  be  said  to  combine  the  functions  of  the 
King  in  this  country  and  those  of  a  Prime  Minister  whose 
Cabinet  is  in  due  subjection  to  him.  But  that  description 
needs  one  very  important  qualification.  He  wields,  with 
certain  slight  restrictions,  the  whole  executive  power  of 
government,  but  neither  he  nor  any  of  his  ministers  can, 
like  the  ministers  of  our  King,  sit  or  speak  in  the  Legis- 
lature, nor  can  he,  like  our  King,  dissolve  that  Legisla- 
ture. He  has  indeed  a  veto  on  Acts  of  Congress,  which 
can  only  be  overridden  by  a  large  majority  in  both 
Houses.  But  the  executive  and  the  legislative  powers  in 
America  were  purposely  so  constituted  as  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  each  other  to  a  degree  which  is  unknown  in 
this  country. 

It  is  perhaps  not  very  commonly  understood  that 
President  and  Congress  alike  are  as  strictly  fettered  in 
their  action  by  the  Constitution  as  a  limited  liability 
company  is  by  its  Memorandum  of  Association.  This 
Constitution,  which  defines  both  the  form  of  government 
and  certain  liberties  of  the  subiect,  is  not  unalterable, 


24  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

but  it  can  be  altered  only  by  a  process  which  requires 
both  the  consent  of  a  great  majority  in  Congress  or 
alternatively  of  a  great  majority  of  the  legislatures  of  the 
distinct  States  composing  the  Union,  and  also  ratification 
of  amendments  by  three-fourths  of  the  several  States. 
Thus  we  shall  have  to  notice  later  that  a  "  Constitutional 
Amendment "  abolishing  slavery  became  a  terror  of  the 
future  to  many  people  in  the  slave  States,  but  remained 
all  the  time  an  impossibility  in  the  view  of  most  people 
in  the  free  States. 

We  have,  above  all  things,  to  dismiss  from  our  minds 
any  idea  that  the  Legislature  of  a  State  is  subordinate 
to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  or  that  a  State 
Governor  is  an  officer  under  the  President.  The  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Union  was  the  product  of  a  half-developed 
sense  of  nationality.  Under  it  the  State  authority  (in 
the  American  sense  of  "State")  and  the  Union  or 
Federal  authority  go  on  side  by  side  working  in  separate 
spheres,  each  subject  to  Constitutional  restrictions,  but 
each  in  its  own  sphere  supreme.  Thus  the  State  authority 
is  powerless  to  make  peace  or  war  or  to  impose  customs 
duties,  for  those  are  Federal  matters.  But  the  Union 
authority  is  equally  powerless,  wherever  a  State  authority 
has  been  constituted,  to  punish  ordinary  crime,  to  pro- 
mote education,  or  to  regulate  factories.  In  particular, 
by  the  Constitution  as  it  stood  till  after  the  Civil  War,  the 
Union  authority  was  able  to  prohibit  the  importation  of 
slaves  from  abroad  after  the  end  of  1807,  but  had  no 
power  to  abolish  slavery  itself  in  any  of  the  States. 

Further,  Congress  had  to  be  constituted  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  be  agreeable  to  the  smaller  States  which 
did  not  wish  to  enter  into  a  Union  in  which  their 
influence  would  be  swamped  by  their  more  populous 
neighbours.  Their  interest  was  secured  by  providing 
that  in  the  Senate  each  State  should  have  two  members 
and  no  more,  while  in  the  House  of  Representatives  the 
people  of  the  whole  Union  are  represented  according  to 
population.  Thus  legislation  through  Congress  requires 
the  concurrence  of  two  forces  which  may  easily  be  op- 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       25 

posed,  that  of  the  majority  of  American  citizens  and  that 
of  the  majority  of  the  several  States.  Of  the  two  cham- 
bers, the  Senate,  whose  members  are  elected  for  six  years, 
and  to  secure  continuity  do  not  all  retire  at  the  same 
time,  became  as  time  went  on,  though  not  at  first,  at- 
tractive to  statesmen  of  position,  and  acquired  therefore 
additional  influence. 

Lastly,  the  Union  was  and  is  still  the  possessor  of 
Territories  not  included  in  any  State,  and  in  the  Terri- 
tories, whatever  subordinate  self-government  they  might 
be  allowed,  the  Federal  authority  has  always  been  su- 
preme and  uncontrolled  in  all  matters.  But  as  these 
Territories  have  become  more  settled  and  more  popu- 
lated, portions  of  them  have  steadily  from  the  first  been 
organised  as  States  and  admitted  to  the  Union.  It  is 
for  Congress  to  settle  the  time  of  their  admission  and 
to  make  any  conditions  in  regard  to  their  Constitutions 
as  States.  But  when  once  admitted  as  States  they  have 
thenceforward  the  full  rights  of  the  original  States. 
Within  all  the  Territories,  while  they  remained  under  its 
jurisdiction  it  lay  with  Congress  to  determine  whether 
slavery  should  be  lawful  or  not,  and,  when  any  portion 
of  them  was  ripe  for  admission  to  the  Union  as  a  State, 
Congress  could  insist  that  the  new  State's  Constitution 
should  or  should  not  prohibit  slavery.  When  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  Union  was  being  settled,  slavery  was  the 
subject  of  most  careful  compromise;  but  in  any  union 
formed  between  slave  States  and  free,  a  bitter  root  of 
controversy  must  have  remained,  and  the  opening  through 
which  controversy  actually  returned  was  provided  by  the 
Territories. 

On  all  other  matters  the  makers  of  the  Constitution 
had  in  the  highest  temper  of  statesmanship  found  a  way 
round  seemingly  insuperable  difficulties.  The  whole 
attitude  of  "the  fathers  "  towards  slavery  is  a  question 
of  some  consequence  to  a  biographer  of  Lincoln,  and  we 
shall  return  to  it  in  a  little  while. 


26  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

2.  Territorial  Expansion. 

A  machine  of  government  had  been  created,  and  we  are 
shortly  to  consider  how  it  was  got  to  work.  But  the 
large  dominion  to  be  governed  had  to  be  settled,  and  its 
area  was  about  to  undergo  an  enormous  expansion.  It 
will  be  convenient  at  this  point  to  mark  the  stages  of 
this  development. 

The  thirteen  Colonies  had,  when  they  first  revolted, 
definite  western  boundaries,  the  westernmost  of  them 
reaching  back  from  the  sea-board  to  a  frontier  in  the 
Alleghany  Mountains.  But  at  the  close  of  the  war  Great 
Britain  ceded  to  the  United  States  the  whole  of  the  in- 
land country  up  to  the  Mississippi  River.  Virginia  had 
in  the  meantime  effectively  colonised  Kentucky  to  the 
west  of  her,  and  for  a  time  this  was  treated  as  within 
her  borders.  In  a  similar  way  Tennessee  had  been 
settled  from  North  and  South  Carolina  and  was  treated 
as  part  of  the  former.  Virginia  had  also  established 
claims  by  conquest  north  of  the  Ohio  River  in  what  was 
called  the  North-West  Territory,  but  these  claims  and 
all  similar  claims  of  particular  States  in  unsettled  or  half- 
settled  territory  were  shortly  before  or  shortly  after  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  ceded  to  the  Union  Govern- 
ment. But  the  dominions  of  that  Government  soon  re- 
ceived a  vast  accession.  In  1803,  by  a  brave  exercise  of 
the  Constitutional  powers  which  he  was  otherwise  dis- 
posed to  restrict  jealously,  President  Jefferson  bought 
from  Napoleon  I.  the  great  expanse  of  country  west  of 
the  Mississippi  called  Louisiana.  This  region  in  the 
extreme  south  was  no  wider  than  the  present  State  of 
Louisiana,  but  further  north  it  widened  out  so  as  to  take 
in  the  whole  watershed  of  the  Missouri  and  its  tribu- 
taries, including  in  the  extreme  north  nearly  all  the 
present  State  of  Montana.  In  1819  Florida  was  pur- 
chased from  Spain,  and  that  country  at  the  same  time 
abandoned  its  claims  to  a  strip  of  coastland  which  now 
forms  the  sea-board  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi. 

Such  was  the  extent  of  the  United  States  when  Lincoln 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       27 

began  his  political  life.  In  the  movement  of  population 
by  which  this  domain  was  being  settled  up,  different 
streams  may  be  roughly  distinguished.  First,  there  was 
from  1780  onwards  a  constant  movement  of  the  poorer 
class  and  of  younger  sons  of  rich  men  from  the  great 
State  of  Virginia  and  to  some  extent  from  the  Carolinas 
into  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  whence  they  often  shifted 
further  north  into  Indiana  and  Illinois,  or  sometimes 
further  west  into  Missouri.  It  was  mainly  a  movement 
of  single  families  or  groups  of  families  of  adventurous 
pioneers,  very  sturdy,  and  very  turbulent.  Then  there 
came  the  expansion  of  the  great  plantation  interest  in  the 
further  South,  carrying  with  it  as  it  spread,  not  occasional 
slaves  as  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  but  the  whole 
plantation  system.  This  movement  went  not  only  directly 
westward,  but  still  more  by  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  up 
the  Mississippi,  into  the  State  of  Louisiana,  where  a 
considerable  French  population  had  settled,  the  State  of 
Mississippi,  and  later  into  Missouri.  Later  still  came  the 
westward  movement  from  the  Northern  States.  The 
energies  of  the  people  in  these  States  had  at  first  been  to 
a  great  extent  absorbed  by  sea-going  pursuits  and  the 
subjugation  of  their  own  rugged  soil,  so  that  they  reached 
western  regions  like  Illinois  rather  later  than  did  the 
settlers  from  States  further  south.  Ultimately,  as  their 
manufactures  grew,  immigration  from  Europe  began  its 
steady  flow  to  these  States,  and  the  great  westward 
stream,  which  continuing  in  our  days  has  filled  up  the 
rich  lands  of  the  far  North- West,  grew  in  volume.  But 
want  of  natural  timber  and  other  causes  hindered  the 
development  of  the  fertile  prairie  soil  in  the  regions 
beyond  the  upper  Mississippi,  till  the  period  of  railway 
development,  which  began  about  1840,  was  far  advanced. 
Illinois  was  Far  West  in  1830,  Iowa  and  Minnesota  con- 
tinued to  be  so  in  1860.  The  Northerners,  when  they 
began  to  move  westward,  came  in  comparatively  large 
numbers,  bringing  comparatively  ordered  habits  and 
the  full  machinery  of  outward  civilisation  with  them. 
Thus  a  great  social  change  followed  upon  their  arrival 


28  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  the  regions  to  which  only  scattered  pioneers  such  as 
the  Lincolns  had  previously  penetrated.  In  Illinois,  with 
which  so  much  of  our  story  is  bound  up,  the  rapidity  of 
that  change  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  the 
population  of  that  State  multiplied  sevenfold  between  the 
time  when  Lincoln  settled  there  and  the  day  when  he 
left  it  as  President. 

The  concluding  stages  by  which  the  dominions  of  the 
United  States  came  to  be  as  we  know  them  were :  the 
annexation  by  agreement  in  1846  of  the  Republic  of 
Texas,  which  had  separated  itself  from  Mexico  and  which 
claimed  besides  the  great  State  of  Texas  a  considerable 
territory  reaching  north-west  to  the  upper  portions  of 
the  Arkansas  River;  the  apportionment  to  the  Union  by 
a  delimitation  treaty  with  Great  Britain  in  1846  of  the 
Oregon  Territory,  including  roughly  the  State  of  that 
name  and  the  rest  of  the  basin  of  the  Columbia  River  up 
to  the  present  frontier — British  Columbia  being  at  the 
same  time  apportioned  to  Great  Britain;  the  conquest 
from  Mexico  in  1848  of  California  and  a  vast  moun- 
tainous tract  at  the  back  of  it;  the  purchase  from  Mexico 
of  a  small  frontier  strip  in  1853;  and  the  acquisition  at 
several  later  times  of  various  outlying  dependencies  which 
will  in  no  way  concern  us. 

3.  The  Growth  of  the  Practice  and  Traditions  of  the 
Union  Government. 

We  must  turn  back  to  the  internal  growth  of  the  new 
united  nation.  When  the  Constitution  had  been  formed 
and  the  question  of  its  acceptance  by  the  States  had  been 
at  last  settled,  and  when  Washington  had  been  inaugu- 
rated as  the  first  President  under  it,  a  wholly  new  con- 
flict arose  between  two  parties,  led  by  two  Ministers  in 
the  President's  Cabinet,  Alexander  Hamilton  and  Thomas 
Jefferson.  Both  were  potent  and  remarkable  men,  Hamil- 
ton in  all  senses  a  great  man.  These  two  men,  for  all 
their  antagonism,  did  services  to  their  country,  without 
which  the  vigorous  growth  of  the  new  nation  would  not 
have  been  possible. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       29 

The  figure  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  then  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  (ranked  by  Talleyrand  with  Fox  and 
Napoleon  as  one  of  the  three  great  men  he  had  known), 
must  fascinate  any  English  student  of  the  period.  If  his 
name  is  not  celebrated  in  the  same  way  in  the  country 
which  he  so  eminently  served,  it  is  perhaps  because  in 
his  ideas,  as  in  his  origin,  he  was  not  strictly  American. 
As  a  boy,  half  Scotch,  half  French  Huguenot,  from  the 
English  West  Indian  island  of  Nevis,  he  had  been  at 
school  in  New  York  when  his  speeches  had  some  real 
effect  in  attaching  that  city  to  the  cause  of  Independ- 
ence. He  had  served  brilliantly  in  the  war,  on  Washing- 
ton's staff  and  with  his  regiment.  He  had  chivalrously 
defended,  as  an  advocate  and  in  other  ways,  the  English- 
men and  loyalists  against  whose  cause  he  fought.  He 
had  induced  the  great  central  State  of  New  York  to  ac- 
cept the  Constitution,  when  the  strongest  local  party 
would  have  rejected  it  and  made  the  Union  impossible. 
As  Washington's  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  he  organised 
the  machinery  of  government,  helped  his  chief  to  preserve 
a  strong,  upright  and  cautious  foreign  policy  at  the  critical 
point  of  the  young  Republic's  infancy,  and  performed 
perhaps  the  greatest  and  most  difficult  service  of  all  in 
setting  the  disordered  finances  of  the  country  upon  a 
sound  footing.  In  early  middle  age  he  ended  a  life,  not 
flawless  but  admirable  and  lovable,  in  a  duel,  murderously 
forced  upon  him  by  one  Aaron  Burr.  This  man,  who 
was  an  elegant  profligate,  with  many  graces  but  no  public 
principle,  was  a  claimant  to  the  Presidency  in  opposition 
to  Hamilton's  greatest  opponent,  Jefferson;  Hamilton 
knowingly  incurred  a  feud  which  must  at  the  best  have 
been  dangerous  to  him,  by  unhesitatingly  throwing  his 
weight  upon  the  side  of  Jefferson,  his  own  ungenerous 
rival.  The  details  of  his  policy  do  not  concern  us,  but 
the  United  States  could  hardly  have  endured  for  many 
years  without  the  passionate  sense  of  the  need  of  govern- 
ment and  the  genius  for  actual  administration  with  which 
Hamilton  set  the  new  nation  on  its  way.  Nevertheless — 
so  do  gifts  differ — the  general  spirit  which  has  on  the 


30  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

whole  informed  the  American  nation  and  held  it  together 
was  neither  respected  nor  understood  by  him.  His  party, 
called  the  Federalists,  because  they  claimed  to  stand  for 
a  strong  and  an  efficient  Federal  Government,  did  not 
survive  him  long.  It  is  of  interest  to  us  here  only  be- 
cause, with  its  early  disappearance,  there  ceased  for  ever 
to  be  in  America  any  party  whatsoever  which  in  any 
sense  represented  aristocratic  principles  or  leanings. 

The  fate  of  Jefferson's  party  (at  first  called  Republican 
but  by  no  means  to  be  confused  with  the  Republican 
party  which  will  concern  us  later)  was  far  different,  for 
the  Democratic  party,  represented  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States  at  this  moment,  claims  to  descend  from 
it  in  unbroken  apostolic  succession.  But  we  need  not 
pause  to  trace  the  connecting  thread  between  them,  real 
as  it  is,  for  parties  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  individuals. 
Indeed  the  personality  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  Secretary  of 
State  in  Washington's  Cabinet,  impressed  itself,  during 
his  life  and  long  after,  upon  all  America  more  than  that 
of  any  other  man.  Democrats  to-day  have  described  Lin- 
coln, who  by  no  means  belonged  to  their  party,  as  Jef- 
ferson's spiritual  heir;  and  Lincoln  would  have  welcomed 
the  description. 

No  biographer  has  achieved  an  understanding  present- 
ment of  Jefferson's  curious  character,  which  as  presented 
by  unfriendly  critics  is  an  unpleasing  combination  of 
contrasting  elements.  A  tall  and  active  fellow,  a  good 
horseman  and  a  good  shot,  living  through  seven  years 
of  civil  war,  which  he  had  himself  heralded  in,  without 
the  inclination  to  strike  a  blow;  a  scholar,  musician,  and 
mathematician,  without  delicacy,  elevation,  or  precision 
of  thought  or  language;  a  man  of  intense  ambition,  with- 
out either  administrative  capacity  or  the  courage  to  assert 
himself  in  counsel  or  in  debate;  a  dealer  in  philanthropic 
sentiment,  privately  malignant  and  vindictive.  This  is 
not  as  a  whole  a  credible  portrait;  it  cannot  stand  for  the 
man  as  his  friends  knew  him;  but  there  is  evidence  for 
each  feature  of  it,  and  it  remains  impossible  for  a 
foreigner  to  think  of  Jefferson  and  not  compare  him  to  his 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       31 

disadvantage  with  the  antagonist  whom  he  eclipsed.  By 
pertinacious  industry,  however,  working  chiefly  through 
private  correspondence,  he  constructed  a  great  party,  dom- 
inated a  nation,  and  dominated  it  mainly  for  good.  For 
the  rapid  and  complete  triumph  of  Jefferson's  party  over 
its  opponents  signifies  a  very  definite  and  lasting  conver- 
sion of  the  main  stream  of  American  public  opinion  to 
what  may  be  called  the  sane  element  in  the  principles  of 
the  French  Revolution.  At  the  time  when  he  set  himself 
to  counterwork  Hamilton,  American  statesmanship  was 
likely  to  be  directed  only  to  making  Government  strong 
and  to  ensuring  the  stability  of  the  business  world;  for 
reaction  against  the  bloody  absurdities  that  had  hap- 
pened in  France  was  strong  in  America,  and  in  English 
thought,  which  still  had  influence  in  America,  it  was  all- 
powerful.  Against  this  he  asserted  an  intense  belief  in 
the  value  of  freedom,  in  the  equal  claim  of  men  of  all 
conditions  to  the  consideration  of  government,  and  in 
the  supreme  importance  to  government  of  the  consenting 
mind  of  the  governed.  And  he  made  this  sense  so  defi- 
nitely a  part  of  the  national  stock  of  ideas  that,  while  the 
older-established  principles  of  strong  and  sound  govern- 
ment were  not  lost  to  sight,  they  were  consciously  rated 
as  subordinate  to  the  principles  of  liberty. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  ascendency  thus  early 
acquired  by  what  may  be  called  liberal  opinions  in 
America  was  a  matter  merely  of  setting  some  fine  phrases 
in  circulation,  or  of  adopting,  as  was  early  done  in  most 
States,  a  wide  franchise  and  other  external  marks  of 
democracy.  We  may  dwell  a  little  longer  on  the  unusual 
but  curiously  popular  figure  of  Jefferson,  for  it  illustrates 
the  spirit  with  which  the  commonwealth  became  imbued 
under  his  leadership.  He  has  sometimes  been  presented 
as  a  man  of  flabby  character  whose  historical  part  was 
that  of  intermediary  between  impracticable  French  "  phi- 
losophes  "  and  the  ruffians  and  swindlers  that  Martin 
Chuzzlewit  encountered,  who  were  all  "  children  of 
liberty,"  and  whose  "  boastful  answer  to  the  Despot  and 
the  Tyrant  was  that  their  bright  home  was  in  the  Settin' 


32  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Sun."  He  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  His  judgment  was 
probably  unsound  on  the  questions  of  foreign  policy  on 
which  as  Secretary  of  State  he  differed  from  Washington, 
and  he  leaned,  no  doubt,  to  a  jealous  and  too  narrow  in- 
sistence upon  the  limits  set  by  the  Constitution  to  the 
Government's  power.  But  he  and  his  party  were  em- 
phatically right  in  the  resistance  which  they  offered  to 
certain  needless  measures  of  coercion.  As  President, 
though  he  was  not  a  great  President,  he  suffered  the  sensi- 
ble course  of  administration  originated  by  his  opponent 
to  continue  undisturbed,  and  America  owed  to  one  bold 
and  far-seeing  act  of  his  the  greatest  of  the  steps  by  which 
her  territory  was  enlarged.  It  is,  however,  in  the  field 
of  domestic  policy,  which  rested  with  the  States  and  with 
which  a  President  has  often  little  to  do,  that  the  results 
of  his  principles  must  be  sought.  Jefferson  was  a  man 
who  had  worked  unwearyingly  in  Virginia  at  sound,  and 
what  we  should  now  call  conservative,  reforms,  establish- 
ing religious  toleration,  reforming  a  preposterous  land 
law,  seeking  to  provide  education  for  the  poor,  striving 
unsuccessfully  for  a  sensible  scheme  of  gradual  emanci- 
pation of  the  slaves.  In  like  manner  his  disciples  after 
him,  in  their  several  States,  devoted  themselves  to  the 
kind  of  work  in  removing  manifest  abuses  and  providing 
for  manifest  new  social  needs  in  which  English  reformers 
like  Romilly  and  Bentham,  and  the  leaders  of  the  first 
reformed  Parliament,  were  to  be  successful  somewhat 
later.  The  Americans  who  so  exasperated  Dickens  vainly 
supposed  themselves  to  be  far  ahead  of  England  in  much 
that  we  now  consider  essential  to  a  well-ordered  nation. 
But  there  could  have  been  no  answer  to  Americans  of 
Jefferson's  generation  if  they  had  made  the  same  claim. 
It  is  with  this  fact  in  mind  that  we  should  approach 
the  famous  words  of  Jefferson  which  echoed  so  long  with 
triumphant  or  reproachful  sound  in  the  ears  of  Americans 
and  to  which  long  after  Lincoln  was  to  make  a  memo- 
rable appeal.  The  propaganda  which  he  carried  on  when 
the  Constitution  had  been  adopted  was  on  behalf  of  a 
principle  which  he  had  enunciated  as  a  younger  man  when 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       33 

he  drafted  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  That  docu- 
ment is  mainly  a  rehearsal  of  the  colonists'  grievances, 
and  is  as  strictly  lawyerlike  and  about  as  fair  or  unfair 
as  the  arguments  of  &  Parliamentarian  under  Charles  I. 
But  the  argumentation  is  prefaced  with  these  sounding 
words:  "We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident: — that 
all  men  are  created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their 
Creator  with  certain  unalienable  rights;  that  among  these 
are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That  to 
secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among 
men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed."  Few  propositions  outside  the  Bible  have 
offered  so  easy  a  mark  to  the  shafts  of  unintelligently 
clever  criticism. 

Jefferson,  when  he  said  that  "  all  men  are  created 
equal,"  and  the  Tory  Dr.  Johnson,  when  he  spoke  of 
"  the  natural  equality  of  man,"  used  a  curious  eighteenth 
century  phrase,  of  which  a  Greek  scholar  can  see  the 
origin;  but  it  did  not  mean  anything  absurd,  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  did  it  convey  a  mere  platitude.  It  should 
not  be  necessary  to  explain,  as  Lincoln  did  long  after, 
that  Jefferson  did  not  suppose  all  men  to  be  of  equal 
height  or  weight  or  equally  wise  or  equally  good.  He 
did,  however,  contend  for  a  principle  of  which  one  ele- 
mentary application  is  the  law  which  makes  murder  the 
same  crime  whatever  be  the  relative  positions  of  the 
murderer  and  the  murdered  man.  Such  a  law  was  indeed 
firmly  rooted  in  England  before  Jefferson  talked  of 
equality,  but  it  amazed  the  rest  of  Europe  when  the 
House  of  Lords  hanged  a  peer  for  the  murder  of  his 
servant.  There  are  indefinitely  many  further  ways  in 
which  men  who  are  utterly  unequal  had  best  be  treated 
as  creatures  equally  entitled  to  the  consideration  of  gov- 
ernment and  of  their  neighbours.  It  is  safer  to  carry 
this  principle  too  far  than  not  to  carry  it  far  enough. 
If  Jefferson  had  expressed  this  and  his  cognate  principle 
of  liberty  with  scientific  precision,  or  with  the  full  per- 
sonal sincerity  with  which  a  greater  man  like  Lincoln 
expressed  it,  he  would  have  said  little  from  which  any 


34  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Englishman  to-day  would  dissent.  None  the  less  he 
would  have  enunciated  a  doctrine  which  most  Govern- 
ments then  existing  set  at  naught  or  proscribed,  and  for 
which  Hamilton  and  the  prosperous  champions  of  in- 
dependence who  supported  him  had  no  use. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  not  a  very 
candid  State  paper,  and  the  popularity  Jefferson  after- 
wards created  for  its  sentiments  was  not  wholly  free  from 
humbug.  Many  men  were  more  ready  to  think  them- 
selves the  equals  of  Washington  or  Hamilton  in  the 
respects  in  which  they  were  not  so,  than  to  think  a  negro 
their  own  equal  in  the  respects  in  which  he  was.  The 
boundless  space  and  untrammelled  conditions  of  the  new 
world  made  liberty  and  equality  in  some  directions  highly 
attainable  ideals,  so  much  so  that  they  seemed  to  demand 
little  effort  or  discipline.  The  patriotic  orators  under 
whom  Lincoln  sat  in  his  youth  would  ascribe  to  the 
political  wisdom  of  their  great  democracy  what  was  really 
the  result  of  geography.  They  would  regard  the  extent 
of  forest  and  prairie  as  creditable  to  themselves,  just  as 
some  few  Englishmen  have  regarded  our  location  upon 
an  island. 

This  does  not,  however,  do  away  with  the  value  of 
that  tradition  of  the  new  world  which  in  its  purest  and 
sincerest  form  became  part  and  parcel  of  Lincoln's  mind. 
Jefferson  was  a  great  American  patriot.  In  his  case  in- 
sistence on  the  rights  of  the  several  States  sprang  from 
no  half-hearted  desire  for  a  great  American  nation;  he 
regarded  these  provincial  organisations  as  machinery  by 
which  government  and  the  people  could  be  brought  nearer 
together;  and  he  contributed  that  which  was  most  needed 
for  the  evolution  of  a  vigorous  national  life.  He  im- 
parted to  the  very  recent  historical  origin  of  his  country, 
and  his  followers  imparted  to  its  material  conditions,  a 
certain  element  of  poetry  and  the  felt  presence  of  a 
wholesome  national  ideal.  The  patriotism  of  an  older 
country  derives  its  glory  and  its  pride  from  influences 
deep  rooted  in  the  past,  creating  a  tradition  of  public 
and  private  action  which  needs  no  definite  formula.  The 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       35 

man  who  did  more  than  any  other  to  supply  this  lack  in 
a  new  country,  by  imbuing  its  national  consciousness — • 
even  its  national  cant — with  high  aspiration,  did — it  may 
well  be — more  than  any  strong  administrator  or  construc- 
tive statesman  to  create  a  Union  which  should  thereafter 
seem  worth  preserving. 

4.   The  Missouri  Compromise. 

No  sober  critic,  applying  to  the  American  statesmen 
of  the  first  generation  the  standards  which  he  would 
apply  to  their  English  contemporaries,  can  blame  them 
in  the  least  because  they  framed  their  Constitution  as 
best  they  could  and  were  not  deterred  by  the  scruples 
which  they  felt  about  slavery  from  effecting  a  Union 
between  States  which,  on  all  other  grounds  except  their 
latent  difference  upon  slavery,  seemed  meant  to  be  one. 
But  many  of  these  men  had  set  their  hands  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  to  the  most  unqualified  claim  of 
liberty  and  equality  for  all  men  and  proceeded,  in  the 
Constitution,  to  give  nineteen  years'  grace  to  "  that  most 
detestable  sum  of  all  villainies,"  as  Wesley  called  it,  the 
African  slave  trade,  and  to  impose  on  the  States  which 
thought  slavery  wrong  the  dirty  work  of  restoring  escaped 
slaves  to  captivity.  "Why,"  Dr.  Johnson  had  asked,  "  do 
the  loudest  yelps  for  liberty  come  from  the  drivers  of 
slaves?"  We  are  forced  to  recognise,  upon  any  study 
of  the  facts,  that  they  could  not  really  have  made  the 
Union  otherwise  than  as  they  did;  yet  a  doubt  presents 
itself  as  to  the  general  soundness  and  sincerity  of  their 
boasted  notions  of  liberty.  Now,  later  on  we  shall  have 
to  understand  the  policy  as  to  slavery  on  behalf  of  which 
Lincoln  stepped  forward  as  a  leader.  In  his  own  con- 
stantly reiterated  words  it  was  a  return  to  the  position 
of  "  the  fathers,"  and,  though  he  was  not  a  professional 
historian,  it  concerns  us  to  know  that  there  was  sincerity 
at  least  in  his  intensely  historical  view  of  politics.  We 
have,  then,  to  see  first  how  "  the  fathers  " — that  is,  the 
most  considerable  men  among  those  who  won  Independ- 


36  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ence  and  made  the  Constitution — set  out  with  a  very 
honest  view  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  but  with  a  too 
comfortable  hope  of  its  aproaching  end,  which  one  or  two 
lived  to  see  frustrated;  secondly,  how  the  men  who  suc- 
ceeded them  were  led  to  abandon  such  hopes  and  content 
themselves  with  a  compromise  as  to  slavery  which  they 
trusted  would  at  least  keep  the  American  nation  in  being. 
Among  those  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence there  were  presumably  some  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
"  yelpers."  It  mattered  more  that  there  were  sturdy 
people  who  had  no  idea  of  giving  up  slavery  and  probably 
did  not  relish  having  to  join  in  protestations  about 
equality.  Men  like  Jefferson  ought  to  have  known  well 
that  their  associates  in  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  in 
particular  did  not  share  their  aspirations — the  people  of 
Georgia  indeed  were  recent  and  ardent  converts  to  the 
slave  system.  But  these  sincere  and  insincere  believers 
in  slavery  were  the  exceptions;  their  views  did  not  then 
seem  to  prevail  even  in  the  greatest  of  the  slave  States, 
Virginia.  Broadly  speaking,  the  American  opinion  on 
this  matter  in  1775  or  in  1789  had  gone  as  far  ahead  of 
English  opinion,  as  English  opinion  had  in  turn  gone 
ahead  of  American,  when,  in  1833,  the  year  after  the 
first  Reform  Bill,  the  English  people  put  its  hand  into 
its  pocket  and  bought  out  its  own  slave  owners  in  the 
West  Indies.  The  British  Government  had  forced  sev- 
eral of  the  American  Colonies  to  permit  slavery  against 
their  will,  and  only  in  1769  it  had  vetoed,  in  the  interest 
of  British  trade,  a  Colonial  enactment  for  suppressing 
the  slave  trade.  This  was  sincerely  felt  as  a  part,  though 
a  minor  part,  of  the  grievance  against  the  mother  country. 
So  far  did  such  views  prevail  on  the  surface  that  a  Con- 
vention of  all  the  Colonies  in  1774  unanimously  voted 
that  "  the  abolition  of  domestic  slavery  is  the  greatest 
object  of  desire  in  those  Colonies  where  it  was  unhappily 
introduced  in  their  infant  state.  But  previous  to  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  slaves  in  law,  it  is  necessary  to 
exclude  all  further  importation  from  Africa."  It  was 
therefore  very  commonly  assumed  when,  after  an  interval 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       37 

of  war  which  suspended  such  reforms,  Independence  was 
achieved,  that  slavery  was  a  doomed  institution. 

Those  among  the  "  fathers  "  whose  names  are  best 
known  in  England,  Washington,  John  Adams,  Jefferson, 
Madison,  Franklin,  and  Hamilton,  were  all  opponents 
of  slavery.  These  include  the  first  four  Presidents,  and 
the  leaders  of  very  different  schools  of  thought.  Some 
of  them,  Washington  and  Jefferson  at  least,  had  a  few 
slaves  of  their  own.  Washington's  attitude  to  his  slaves 
is  illustrated  by  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  secure  the 
return  of  a  black  attendant  of  Mrs.  Washington's  who 
had  run  away  (a  thing  which  he  had  boasted  could  never 
occur  in  his  household)  ;  the  runaway  was  to  be  brought 
back  if  she  could  be  persuaded  to  return;  her  master's 
legal  power  to  compel  her  was  not  to  be  used.  She  was 
in  fact  free,  but  had  foolishly  left  a  good  place;  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  was  otherwise  with 
Jefferson's  slaves.  Jefferson's  theory  was  vehemently 
against  slavery.  In  old  age  he  gave  up  hope  in  the 
matter  and  was  more  solicitous  for  union  than  for 
liberty,  but  this  was  after  the  disappointment  of  many 
efforts.  In  these  efforts  he  had  no  illusory  notion  of 
equality;  he  wrote  in  1791,  when  he  had  been  defeated 
in  the  attempt  to  carry  a  measure  of  gradual  emancipa- 
tion in  Virginia :  "  Nobody  wishes  more  than  I  do  to  see 
such  proofs  as  you  exhibit,  that  Nature  has  given  to  our 
black  brothers  talents  equal  to  those  of  the  other  colours 
of  men,  and  that  the  appearance  of  a  want  of  them  is 
owing  mainly  to  the  degraded  condition  of  their  ex- 
istence, both  in  Africa  and  America.  I  can  add  with 
truth,  that  nobody  wishes  more  ardently  to  see  a  good 
system  commenced  for  raising  the  condition  both  of  their 
body  and  mind  to  what  it  ought  to  be,  as  fast  as  the 
imbecility  of  their  present  existence  and  other  circum- 
stances, which  cannot  be  neglected,  will  permit." 

When  he  felt  at  last  that  freedom  was  not  making 
way,  his  letters,  by  which  his  influence  was  chiefly  exer- 
cised, abounded  in  passionate  regrets.  "  I  tremble  for 
my  country,"  he  wrote,  "  when  I  think  of  the  negro 


38  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  remember  that  God  is  just."  But  if  he  is  judged  not 
by  his  sentiments,  or  even  by  his  efforts,  but  by  what  he 
accomplished,  this  rhetorical  champion  of  freedom  did 
accomplish  one  great  act,  the  first  link  as  it  proved  in  the 
chain  of  events  by  which  slavery  was  ultimately  abolished. 
In  1784  the  North- West  Territory,  as  it  was  called,  was 
ceded  by  Virginia  to  the  old  Congress  of  the  days  before 
the  Union.  Jefferson  then  endeavoured  to  pass  an 
Ordinance  by  which  slavery  should  be  excluded  from  all 
territory  that  might  ever  belong  to  Congress.  In  this 
indeed  he  failed,  for  in  part  of  the  territory  likely  to  be 
acquired  slavery  was  already  established,  but  the  result 
was  a  famous  Ordinance  of  1787,  by  which  slavery  was 
for  ever  excluded  from  the  soil  of  the  North-West  Terri- 
tory itself,  and  thus,  when  they  came  into  being,  the 
States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wis- 
consin found  themselves  congenitally  incapable  of  becom- 
ing slave  States. 

The  further  achievements  of  that  generation  in  this 
matter  were  considerable.  It  must  of  course  be  under- 
stood that  the  holding  of  slaves  and  the  slave  trade  from 
Africa  were  regarded  as  two  distinct  questions.  The 
new  Congress  abolished  the  slave  trade  on  the  first  day 
on  which  the  Constitution  allowed  it  to  do  so,  that  is, 
on  January  I,  1808.  The  mother  country  abolished  it 
just  about  the  same  time.  But  already  all  but  three  of 
the  States  had  for  themselves  abolished  the  slave  trade 
in  their  own  borders.  As  to  slavery  itself,  seven  of  the 
original  thirteen  States  and  Vermont,  the  first  of  the 
added  States,  had  abolished  that  before  1805.  These 
indeed  were  Northern  States,  where  slavery  was  not  of 
importance,  but  in  Virginia  there  was,  or  had  been  till 
lately,  a  growing  opinion  that  slavery  was  not  economi- 
cal, and,  with  the  ignorance  common  in  one  part  of  a 
country  of  the  true  conditions  in  another  part,  it  was 
natural  to  look  upon  emancipation  as  a  policy  which 
would  spread  of  itself.  At  any  rate  it  is  certain  fact  that 
the  chief  among  the  men  who  had  made  the  Constitution 
had  at  that  time  so  regarded  it,  and  continued  to  do  so. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       39 

Under  this  belief  and  in  the  presence  of  many  pressing 
subjects  of  interest  the  early  movement  for  emancipation 
in  America  died  down  with  its  work  half  finished. 

But  before  this  happy  belief  expired  an  economic  event 
had  happened  which  riveted  slavery  upon  the  South.  In 
1793  Eli  Whitney,  a  Yale  student  upon  a  holiday  in 
the  South,  invented  the  first  machine  for  cleaning  cotton 
of  its  seeds.  The  export  of  cotton  jumped  from  192,000 
Ibs.  in  1791  to  6,000,000  Ibs.  in  1795.  Slave  labour  had 
been  found,  or  was  believed,  to  be  especially  economical 
in  cotton  growing.  Slavery  therefore  rapidly  became  the 
mainstay  of  wealth  and  of  the  social  system  in  South 
Carolina  and  throughout  the  far  South;  and  in  a  little 
while  the  baser  sort  of  planters  in  Virginia  discovered 
that  breeding  slaves  to  sell  down  South  was  a  very  profit- 
able form  of  stock-raising. 

We  may  pass  to  the  year  1820,  when  an  enactment 
was  passed  by  Congress  which  for  thirty-four  years  there- 
after might  be  regarded  as  hardly  less  fundamental  than 
the  Constitution  itself.  Up  till  then  nine  new  States  had 
been  added  to  the  original  thirteen.  It  was  repugnant  to 
principles  still  strong  in  the  North  that  these  States  should 
be  admitted  to  the  Union  with  State  Constitutions  which 
permitted  slavery.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  for  two 
reasons  important  to  the  chief  slave  States,  that  they 
should  be.  They  would  otherwise  be  closed  to  Southern 
planters  who  wished  to  migrate  to  unexhausted  soil  carry- 
ing with  them  the  methods  of  industry  and  the  ways  of 
life  which  they  understood.  Furthermore,  the  North 
was  bound  to  have  before  long  a  great  preponderance  of 
population,  and  if  this  were  not  neutralised  by  keeping 
the  number  of  States  on  one  side  and  the  other  equal 
there  would  be  a  future  political  danger  to  slavery.  Up 
to  a  certain  point  the  North  could  with  good  conscience 
yield  to  the  South  in  this  matter,  for  the  soil  of  four 
of  the  new  slave  States  had  been  ceded  to  the  Union  by 
old  slave  States  and  slave-holders  had  settled  freely  upon 
it;  and  in  a  fifth,  Louisiana,  slavery  had  been  safeguarded 
by  the  express  stipulations  of  the  treaty  with  France, 


40  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

which  applied  to  that  portion,  though  no  other,  of  the 
territory  then  ceded.  Naturally,  then,  it  had  happened, 
though  without  any  definite  agreement,  that  for  years  past 
slave  States  and  free  States  had  been  admitted  to  the 
Union  in  pairs.  Now  arose  the  question  of  a  further 
portion  of  the  old  French  territory,  the  present  State  of 
Missouri.  A  few  slave-holders  with  their  slaves  had  in 
fact  settled  there,  but  no  distinct  claims  on  behalf  of 
slavery  could  be  alleged.  The  Northern  Senators  and 
members  of  Congress  demanded  therefore  that  the  Con- 
stitution of  Missouri  should  provide  for  the  gradual  ex- 
tinction of  slavery  there.  Naturally  there  arose  a  con- 
troversy which  sounded  to  the  aged  Jefferson  like  "  a 
fire-bell  in  the  night "  and  revealed  for  the  first  time  to 
all  America  a  deep  rift  in  the  Union.  The  Representa- 
tives of  the  South  eventually  carried  their  main  point 
with  the  votes  of  several  Northern  men,  known  to  history 
as  the  "  Dough-faces,"  who  all  lost  their  seats  at  the 
next  election.  Missouri  was  admitted  as  a  slave  State, 
Maine  about  the  same  time  as  a  free  State;  and  it  was 
enacted  that  thereafter  in  the  remainder  of  the  territory 
that  had  been  bought  from  France  slavery  should  be 
unlawful  north  of  latitude  36°  30',  while  by  tacit  agree- 
ment permitted  south  of  it. 

This  was  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  North  re- 
garded it  at  first  as  a  humiliation,  but  learnt  to  point  to 
it  later  as  a  sort  of  Magna  Carta  for  the  Northern  terri- 
tories. The  adoption  of  it  marks  a  point  from  which 
it  became  for  thirty-four  years  the  express  ambition  of 
the  principal  American  statesmen  and  the  tacit  object  of 
every  party  manager  to  keep  the  slavery  question  from 
ever  becoming  again  a  burning  issue  in  politics.  The 
collapse  of  it  in  1854  was  to  prove  the  decisive  event 
in  the  career  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  aged  1 1  when  it  was 
passed. 

5.  Leaders,  Parties,  and  Tendencies  in  Lincoln's  Youth. 

Just  about  the  year  1830,  when  Lincoln  started  life 
in  Illinois,  several  distinct  movements  in  national  life 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       41 

began  or  culminated.    They  link  themselves  with  several 
famous  names. 

The  two  leaders  to  whom,  as  a  young  politician, 
Lincoln  owed  some  sort  of  allegiance  were  Webster  and 
Clay,  and  they  continued  throughout  his  long  political 
apprenticeship  to  be  recognised  in  most  of  America  as 
the  great  men  of  their  time.  Daniel  Webster  must  have 
been  nearly  a  great  man.  He  was  always  passed  over 
for  the  Presidency.  That  was  not  so  much  because  of 
the  private  failings  which  marked  his  robust  and  generous 
character,  as  because  in  days  of  artificial  party  issues, 
when  vital  questions  are  dealt  with  by  mere  compromise, 
high  office  seems  to  belong  of  right  to  men  of  less  origi- 
nality. If  he  was  never  quite  so  great  as  all  America  took 
him  to  be,  it  was  not  for  want  of  brains  or  of  honesty, 
but  because  his  consuming  passion  for  the  Union  at  all 
costs  led  him  into  the  path  of  least  apparent  risk  to  it. 
Twice  as  Secretary  of  State  (that  is,  chiefly,  Foreign 
Minister)  he  showed  himself  a  statesman,  but  above  all 
he  was  an  orator  and  one  of  those  rare  orators  who 
accomplish  a  definite  task  by  their  oratory.  In  his  style 
he  carried  on  the  tradition  of  English  Parliamentary 
speaking,  and  developed  its  vices  yet  further;  but  the 
massive  force  of  argument  behind  gave  him  his  real 
power.  That  power  he  devoted  to  the  education  of  the 
people  in  a  feeling  for  the  nation  and  for  its  greatness. 
As  an  advocate  he  had  appeared  in  great  cases  in  the 
Supreme  Court.  John  Marshall,  the  Chief  Justice  from 
1801  to  1835,  brought  a  great  legal  mind  of  the  higher 
type  to  the  settlement  of  doubtful  points  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  his  statesmanlike  judgments  did  much  both  to 
strengthen  the  United  States  Government  and  to  gain 
public  confidence  for  it.  It  was  a  memorable  work,  for 
the  power  of  the  Union  Government,  under  its  new  Con- 
stitution, lay  in  the  grip  of  the  Courts.  The  pleading 
of  the  young  Webster  contributed  much  to  this.  Later 
on  Webster,  and  a  school  of  followers,  of  whom  perhaps 
we  may  take  "  our  Elijah  Pogram  "  to  have  been  one, 
used  ceremonial  occasions,  on  which  Englishmen  only 


42 

suffer  the  speakers,  for  the  purpose  of  inculcating  their 
patriotic  doctrine,  and  Webster  at  least  was  doing  good. 
His  greatest  speech,  upon  an  occasion  to  which  we  shall 
shortly  come,  was  itself  an  event.  Lincoln  found  in  it 
as  inspiring  a  political  treatise  as  many  Englishmen  have 
discovered  in  the  speeches  and  writings  of  Burke. 

Henry  Clay  was  a  slighter  but  more  attractive  person. 
He  was  apparently  the  first  American  public  man  whom 
his  countrymen  styled  "  magnetic,"  but  a  sort  of  schem- 
ing instability  caused  him  after  one  or  two  trials  to  be 
set  down  as  an  "  impossible  "  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency. As  a  dashing  young  man  from  the  West  he  had 
the  chief  hand  in  forcing  on  the  second  war  with  Great 
Britain,  from  1812  to  1814,  which  arose  out  of  perhaps 
insufficient  causes  and  ended  in  no  clear  result,  but  which, 
it  is  probable,  marked  a  stage  in  the  growth  of  loyalty 
to  America.  As  an  older  man  he  was  famed  as  an 
"  architect  of  compromises,"  for  though  he  strove  for 
emancipation  in  his  own  State,  Kentucky,  and  dreamed 
of  a  great  scheme  for  colonising  the  slaves  in  Africa,  he 
was  supremely  anxious  to  avert  collision  between  North 
and  South,  and  in  this  respect  was  typical  of  his  genera- 
tion. But  about  1830  he  was  chiefly  known  as  the  apostle 
of  what  was  called  the  "  American  policy."  This  was  a 
policy  which  aimed  at  using  the  powers  of  the  national 
Government  for  the  development  of  the  boundless  re- 
sources of  the  country.  Its  methods  comprised  a  national 
banking  system,  the  use  of  the  money  of  the  Union  on 
great  public  works,  and  a  protective  tariff,  which  it  was 
hoped  might  chiefly  operate  to  encourage  promising  but 
"  infant "  industries  and  to  tax  the  luxuries  of  the  rich. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  merits  of  this  policy,  which 
made  some  commotion  for  a  few  years,  we  can  easily 
understand  that  it  appealed  to  the  imagination  of  young 
Lincoln  at  a  time  of  keen  political  energy  on  his  part  of 
which  we  have  but  meagre  details. 

A  third  celebrity  of  this  period,  in  his  own  locality 
a  still  more  powerful  man,  was  John  Caldwell  Calhoun, 
of  South  Carolina.  He  enjoyed  beyond  all  his  con« 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       43 

temporaries  the  fame  of  an  intellectual  person.  Lincoln 
conceded  high  admiration  to  his  concise  and  penetrating 
phrases.  An  Englishwoman,  Harriet  Martineau,  who 
knew  him,  has  described  him  as  "  embodied  intellect." 
He  had  undoubtedly  in  full  measure  those  negative  titles 
to  respect  which  have  gone  far  in  America  to  ensure 
praise  from  the  public  and  the  historians;  for  he  was 
correct  and  austere,  and,  which  is  more,  kindly  among 
his  family  and  his  slaves.  He  is  credited,  too,  with  an 
observance  of  high  principle  in  public  life,  which  it  might 
be  difficult  to  illustrate  from  his  recorded  actions.  But 
the  warmer-blooded  Andrew  Jackson  set  him  down  as 
"  heartless,  selfish,  and  a  physical  coward,"  and  Jackson 
could  speak  generously  of  an  opponent  whom  he  really 
knew.  His  intellect  must  have  been  powerful  enough,  but 
it  was  that  of  a  man  who  delights  in  arguing,  and  delights 
in  elaborate  deductions  from  principles  which  he  is  too 
proud  to  revise;  a  man,  too,  who  is  fearless  in  accepting 
conclusions  which  startle  or  repel  the  vulgar  mind;  who 
is  undisturbed  in  his  logical  processes  by  good  sense, 
healthy  sentiment,  or  any  vigorous  appetite  for  truth. 
Such  men  have  disciples  who  reap  the  disgrace  which  their 
masters  are  apt  somehow  to  avoid;  they  give  the  prestige 
of  wisdom  and  high  thought  to  causes  which  could  not 
otherwise  earn  themV  A  Northern  soldier  came  back 
wounded  in  1865  and  described  to  the  next  soldier  in  the 
hospital  Calhoun's  monument  at  Charleston.  The  other 
said :  "  What  you  saw  is  not  the  real  monument,  but  I 
have  seen  it.  It  is  the  desolated,  ruined  South.  .  .  . 
That  is  Calhoun's  real  monument." 

This  man  was  a  Radical,  and  known  as  the  successor 
of  Jefferson,  but  his  Radicalism  showed  itself  in  drawing 
inspiration  solely  from  the  popular  catchwords  of  his 
own  locality.  He  adored  the  Union,  but  it  was  to  be 
a  Union  directed  by  distinguished  politicians  from  the 
South  in  a  sectional  Southern  interest.  He  did  not  origi- 
nate, but  he  secured  the  strength  of  orthodoxy  and 
fashion  to  a  tone  of  sentiment  and  opinion  which  for  a 
generation  held  undisputed  supremacy  in  the  heart  of 


U  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  South.  Americans  might  have  seemed  at  this  time 
to  be  united  in  a  curiously  exultant  national  self-conscious- 
ness, but  though  there  was  no  sharp  division  of  sections, 
the  boasted  glory  of  the  one  America  meant  to  many 
planters  in  the  South  the  glory  of  their  own  settled  and 
free  life  with  their  dignified  equals  round  them  and  their 
often  contented  dependents  under  them.  Plain  men 
among  them  doubtless  took  things  as  they  were,  and, 
without  any  particular  wish  to  change  them,  did  not  pre- 
tend they  were  perfect.  But  it  is  evident  that  in  a  widen- 
ing circle  of  clever  young  men  in  the  South  the  claim  of 
some  peculiar  virtue  for  Southern  institutions  became 
habitual  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Their 
way  of  life  was  beautiful  in  their  eyes.  It  rested  upon 
slavery.  Therefore  slavery  was  a  good  thing.  It  was 
wicked  even  to  criticise  it,  and  it  was  weak  to  apologise 
for  it  or  to  pretend  that  it  needed  reformation.  It  was 
easy  and  it  became  apparently  universal  for  the  different 
Churches  of  the  South  to  prostitute  the  Word  of  God  in 
this  cause.  Later  on  crude  notions  of  evolution  began  to 
get  about  in  a  few  circles  of  advanced  thought,  and  these 
lent  themselves  as  easily  to  the  same  purpose.  Loose, 
floating  thoughts  of  this  kind  might  have  mattered  little. 
Calhoun,  as  the  recognised  wise  man  of  the  old  South, 
concentrated  them  and  fastened  them  upon  its  people  as 
a  creed.  Glorification  of  "  our  institution  at  the  South  " 
became  the  main  principle  of  Southern  politicians,  and 
any  conception  that  there  may  ever  have  been  of  a  task 
for  constructive  statesmanship,  in  solving  the  negro 
problem,  passed  into  oblivion  under  the  influence  of  his 
revered  reasoning  faculty. 

But,  of  his  dark  and  dangerous  sort,  Calhoun  was  an 
able  man.  He  foresaw  early  that  the  best  weapon  of 
the  common  interest  of  the  slave  States  lay  in  the  rights 
which  might  be  claimed  for  each  individual  State  against 
the  Union.  The  idea  that  a  discontented  State  might 
secede  from  the  Union  was  not  novel — it  had  been  mooted 
in  New  England,  during  the  last  war  against  Great 
Britain,  and,  curiously  enough,  among  the  rump  of  the 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       45 

old  Federalist  party,  but  it  was  generally  discounted. 
Calhoun  first  brought  it  into  prominence,  veiled  in  an 
elaborate  form  which  some  previous  South  Carolinian 
had  devised.  The  occasion  had  nothing  to  do  with 
slavery.  It  concerned  Free  Trade,  a  very  respectable 
issue,  but  so  clearly  a  minor  issue  that  to  break  up  a  great 
country  upon  it  would  have  gone  beyond  the  limit  of 
solemn  frivolity,  and  Calhoun  must  be  taken  to  have 
been  forging  an  implement  with  which  his  own  section 
of  the  States  could  claim  and  extort  concessions  from  the 
Union.  A  protective  tariff  had  been  passed  in  1828. 
The  Southern  States,  which  would  have  to  pay  the  pro- 
tective duties  but  did  not  profit  by  them,  disliked  it. 
Calhoun  and  others  took  the  intelligible  but  too  refined 
point,  that  the  powers  of  Congress  under  the  Constitu- 
tion authorised  a  tariff  for  revenue  but  not  a  tariff  for  a 
protective  purpose.  Every  State,  Calhoun  declared,  must 
have  the  Constitutional  right  to  protect  itself  against  an 
Act  of  Congress  which  it  deemed  unconstitutional.  Let 
such  a  State,  in  special  Convention,  "  nullify  "  the  Act 
of  Congress.  Let  Congress  then,  unless  it  compromised 
the  matter,  submit  its  Act  to  the  people  in  the  form  of  an 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  It  would  then  require 
a  three-fourths  majority  of  all  the  States  to  pass  the 
obnoxious  Act.  Last  but  not  least,  if  the  Act  was  passed, 
the  protesting  State  had,  Calhoun  claimed,  the  right  to 
secede  from  the  Union. 

Controversy  over  this  tariff  raged  for  fully  four  years, 
and  had  a  memorable  issue.  In  the  course  of  1830  the 
doctrine  of  "  nullification "  and  "  secession  "  was  dis- 
cussed in  the  Senate,  and  the  view  of  Calhoun  was  ex- 
pounded by  one  Senator  Hayne.  Webster  answered  him 
in  a  speech  which  he  meant  should  become  a  popular 
classic,  and  which  did  become  so.  He  set  forth  his  own 
doctrine  of  the  Union  and  appealed  to  national  against 
State  loyalty  in  the  most  influential  oration  that  was 
perhaps  ever  made.  "  His  utterance,"  writes  President 
Wilson,  "  sent  a  thrill  through  all  the  East  and  North 
which  was  unmistakably  a  thrill  of  triumph.  Men  were 


46  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

glad  because  of  what  he  had  said.  He  had  touched 
the  national  self-consciousness,  awakened  it,  and  pleased 
it  with  a  morning  vision  of  its  great  tasks  and  certain 
destiny."  Later  there  came  in  the  President,  the  re- 
doubtable Andrew  Jackson,  the  most  memorable  Presi- 
dent between  Jefferson  and  Lincoln.  He  said  very  little 
— only,  on  Jefferson's  birthday  he  gave  the  toast,  "  Our 
Federal  Union;  it  must  be  preserved."  But  when  in 
1832,  in  spite  of  concessions  by  Congress,  a  Convention 
was  summoned  in  South  Carolina  to  "  nullify  "  the  tariff, 
he  issued  the  appropriate  orders  to  the  United  States 
Army,  in  case  such  action  was  carried  out,  and  it  is  under- 
stood that  he  sent  Calhoun  private  word  that  he  would 
be  the  first  man  to  be  hanged  for  treason.  Nullification 
quietly  collapsed.  The  North  was  thrilled  still  more 
than  by  Webster's  oratory,  and  as  not  a  single  other  State 
showed  signs  of  backing  South  Carolina,  it  became  thence- 
forth the  fixed  belief  of  the  North  that  the  Union  was 
recognised  as  in  law  indissoluble,  as  Webster  contended 
it  was.  None  the  less  the  idea  of  secession  had  been 
planted,  and  planted  in  a  fertile  soil. 

General  Andrew  Jackson,  whose  other  great  achieve- 
ments must  now  be  told,  was  not  an  intellectual  person, 
but  his  ferocious  and,  in  the  literal  sense,  shocking  char- 
acter is  refreshing  to  the  student  of  this  period.  He 
had  been  in  his  day  the  typical  product  of  the  West — 
a  far  wilder  West  than  that  from  which  Lincoln  later 
came.  Originally  a  lawyer,  he  had  won  martial  fame 
in  fights  with  Indians  and  in  the  celebrated  victory  over 
the  British  forces  at  New  Orleans.  He  was  a  sincere 
Puritan;  and  he  had  a  courtly  dignity  of  manner;  but  he 
was  of  arbitrary  and  passionate  temper,  and  he  was  a 
sanguinary  duellist.  His  most  savage  duels,  it  should 
be  added,  concerned  the  honour  of  a  lady  whom  he 
married  chivalrously,  and  loved  devotedly  to  the  end. 
The  case  that  can  be  made  for  his  many  arbitrary  acts 
shows  them  in  some  instances  to  have  been  justifiable,  and 
shows  him  in  general  to  have  been  honest. 

When    in    1824   Jackson    had    expected    to    become 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       47 

President,  and,  owing  to  proceedings  which  do  not  now 
matter,  John  Quincy  Adams,  son  of  a  former  President, 
and  himself  a  remarkable  man,  was  made  President 
instead  of  him,  Jackson  resolved  to  overthrow  the  ruling 
class  of  Virginian  country  gentlemen  and  Boston  city  mag- 
nates which  seemed  to  him  to  control  Government,  and 
to  call  into  life  a  real  democracy.  To  this  end  he 
created  a  new  party,  against  which  of  course  an  opposi- 
tion party  arose. 

Neither  of  the  new  parties  was  in  any  sense  either 
aristocratic  or  democratic.  "  The  Democracy,"  or  Demo- 
cratic party,  has  continued  in  existence  ever  since,  and 
through  most  of  Lincoln's  life  ruled  America.  In  trying 
to  fix  the  character  of  a  party  in  a  foreign  country  we 
cannot  hope  to  be  exact  in  our  portraiture.  At  the  first 
start,  however,  this  party  was  engaged  in  combating 
certain  tendencies  to  Government  interference  in  busi- 
ness. It  was  more  especially  hostile  to  a  National  Bank, 
which  Jackson  himself  regarded  as  a  most  dangerous 
form  of  alliance  between  the  administration  and  the 
richest  class.  Of  the  growth  of  what  may  be  called  the 
money  power  in  American  politics  he  had  an  intense, 
indeed  prophetic,  dread.  Martin  Van  Buren,  his  friend 
and  successor,  whatever  else  he  may  have  been,  was 
a  sound  economist  of  what  is  now  called  the  old  school, 
^nd  on  a  financial  issue  he  did  what  few  men  in  his 
office  have  done,  he  deliberately  sacrificed  his  popularity 
to  his  principles.  Beyond  this  the  party  was  and  has 
continued  prone,  in  a  manner  which  we  had  better  not 
too  clearly  define,  to  insist  upon  the  restrictions  of  the 
Constitution,  whether  in  the  interest  of  individual  liberty 
or  of  State  rights.  This  tendency  was  disguised  at  the 
first  by  the  arbitrary  action  of  Jackson's  own  proceedings, 
for  Jackson  alone  among  Presidents  displayed  the  senti- 
ments of  what  may  be  called  a  popular  despot.  Its 
insistence  upon  State  rights,  aided  perhaps  by  its  dislike 
of  Protection,  attracted  to  it  the  leading  politicians  of  the 
South,  who  in  the  main  dominated  its  counsels,  though 
later  on  they  liked  to  do  it  through  Northern  instru- 


48  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ments.  But  it  must  not  in  the  least  be  imagined  that 
either  party  was  Northern  or  Southern;  for  there  were 
many  Whigs  in  the  South,  and  very  many  Democrats  in 
the  North.  Moreover,  it  should  be  clearly  grasped, 
though  it  is  hard,  that  among  Northern  Democrats  in- 
sistence on  State  rights  did  not  involve  the  faintest  lean- 
ing towards  the  doctrine  of  secession;  on  the  contrary 
a  typical  Democrat  would  believe  that  these  limitations 
to  the  power  of  the  Union  were  the  very  things  that 
gave  it  endurance  and  strength.  Slavery,  moreover,  had 
friends  and  foes  in  both  parties.  If  we  boldly  attempted 
to  define  the  prevailing  tone  of  the  Democrats  we  might 
say  that,  while  they  and  their  opponents  expressed  loyalty 
to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  the  Democrats  would 
be  prone  to  lay  the  emphasis  upon  the  Constitution. 
Whatever  might  be  the  case  with  an  average  Whig,  a 
man  like  Lincoln  would  be  stirred  in  his  heart  by  the 
general  spirit  of  the  country's  institutions,  while  the 
typical  Democrat  of  that  time  would  dwell  affectionately 
on  the  legal  instruments  and  formal  maxims  in  which  that 
spirit  was  embodied. 

Of  the  Whigs  it  is  a  little  harder  to  speak  definitely, 
nor  is  it  very  necessary,  for  in  two  only  out  of  seven 
Presidential  elections  did  they  elect  their  candidate,  and 
in  each  case  that  candidate  then  died,  and  in  1854  they 
perished  as  a  party  utterly  and  for  ever.  Just  for  a 
time  they  were  identified  with  the  "  American  policy " 
of  Clay.  When  that  passed  out  of  favour  they  never 
really  attempted  to  formulate  any  platform,  or  to  take 
permanently  any  very  definite  stand.  They  nevertheless 
had  the  adherence  of  the  ablest  men  of  the  country, 
and,  as  an  opposition  party  to  a  party  in  power  which 
furnished  much  ground  for  criticism,  they  possessed  an 
attraction  for  generous  youth. 

The  Democrats  at  once,  and  the  Whigs  not  long  after 
them,  created  elaborate  party  machines,  on  the  need  of 
which  Jackson  insisted  as  the  only  means  of  really  giving 
influence  to  the  common  people.  The  prevailing  system 
and  habit  of  local  self-government  made  such  organisa- 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       49 

tion  easy.  Men  of  one  party  in  a  township  or  in  a 
county  assembled,  formulated  their  opinions,  and  sent 
delegates  with  instructions,  more  or  less  precise,  to  party 
conventions  for  larger  areas,  these  would  send  delegates 
to  the  State  Convention  and  these  in  turn  to  the  Na- 
tional Convention  of  the  Party.  The  party  candidates 
for  the  Presidency,  as  well  as  for  all  other  elective  posi- 
tions, were  and  are  thus  chosen,  and  the  party  "  plat- 
form "  or  declaration  of  policy  was  and  is  thus  formu- 
lated. Such  machinery,  which  in  England  is  likely  always 
to  play  a  less  important  part,  has  acquired  an  evil  name. 
At  the  best  there  has  always  been  a  risk  that  a  "  plat- 
form "  designed  to  detach  voters  from  the  opposite  party 
will  be  an  insincere  and  eviscerated  document,  by  which 
active  public  opinion  is  rather  muzzled  than  expressed. 
There  has  been  a  risk  too  that  the  "  available  "  candidate 
should  be  some  blameless  nonentity,  to  whom  no  one 
objects,  and  whom  therefore  no  one  really  wants.  But  it 
must  be  observed  that  the  rapidity  with  which  such 
organisation  was  taken  up  betokened  the  prevalence  of 
a  widespread  and  keen  interest  in  political  affairs. 

The  days  of  really  great  moneyed  interests  and  of 
corruption  of  the  gravest  sort  were  as  yet  far  distant, 
but  one  demoralising  influence  was  imposed  upon  the 
new  party  system  by  its  author  at  its  birth.  Jackson, 
in  his  perpetual  fury,  believed  that  office  holders  under 
the  more  or  less  imaginary  ruling  clique  that  had  held 
sway  were  a  corrupt  gang,  and  he  began  to  turn  them 
out.  He  was  encouraged  to  extend  to  the  whole  country 
a  system  which  had  prevailed  in  New  York  and  with 
which  Van  Buren  was  too  familiar.  "  To  the  victors 
belong  the  spoils,"  exclaimed  a  certain  respectable  Mr. 
Marcy.  A  wholesale  dismissal  of  office  holders  large 
and  small,  and  replacement  of  them  by  sound  Demo- 
crats, soon  took  place.  Once  started,  the  "  spoils  system  " 
could  hardly  be  stopped.  Thenceforward  there  was  a 
standing  danger  that  the  party  machine  would  be  in  the 
hands  of  a  crew  of  jobbers  and  dingy  hunters  after 
petty  offices.  England,  of  course,  has  had  and  now  has 


50  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

practices  theoretically  as  indefensible,  but  none  pos- 
sessing any  such  sinister  importance.  It  is  hard,  there- 
fore, for  us  to  conceive  how  little  of  really  vicious  intent 
was  necessary  to  set  this  disastrous  influence  going.  There 
was  no  trained  Civil  Service  with  its  unpartisan  tradi- 
tions. In  the  case  of  offices  corresponding  to  those  of 
our  permanent  heads  of  departments  it  seemed  reasonable 
that  the  official  should,  like  his  chief  the  Minister  con- 
cerned, be  a  person  in  harmony  with  the  President.  As 
to  the  smaller  offices — the  thousands  of  village  post- 
masterships  and  so  forth — one  man  was  likely  to  do  the 
work  as  well  as  another;  the  dispossessed  official  could, 
in  the  then  condition  of  the  country,  easily  find  another 
equally  lucrative  employment;  "turn  and  turn  about" 
seemed  to  be  the  rule  of  fair  play. 

There  were  now  few  genuine  issues  in  politics.  Com- 
promise on  vital  questions  was  understood  to  be  the 
highest  statesmanship.  The  Constitution  itself,  with  its 
curious  system  of  checks  and  balances,  rendered  it  diffi- 
cult to  bring  anything  to  pass.  Added  to  this  was  a  party 
system  with  obvious  natural  weaknesses,  infected  from 
the  first  with  a  dangerous  malady.  The  political  life, 
which  lay  on  the  surface  of  the  national  life  of  America, 
thus  began  to  assume  an  air  of  futility,  and,  it  must  be 
added,  of  squalor.  Only,  Englishmen,  recollecting  the 
feebleness  and  corruption  which  marked  their  aristocratic 
government  through  a  great  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, must  not  enlarge  their  phylacteries  at  the  expense 
of  American  democracy.  And  it  is  yet  more  important  to 
remember  that  the  fittest  machinery  for  popular  govern- 
ment, the  machinery  through  which  the  real  judgment  of 
the  people  will  prevail,  can  only  by  degrees  and  after 
many  failures  be  devised.  Popular  government  was  then 
young,  and  it  is  young  still. 

So  much  for  the  great  world  of  politics  in  those  days. 
But  in  or  about  1830  a  Quaker  named  Lundy  had,  as 
Quakers  used  to  say,  "a  concern"  to  walk  125  miles 
through  the  snow  of  a  New  England  winter  and  speak 
his  mind  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison.  Garrison  was  a 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION        51 

poor  man  who,  like  Franklin,  had  raised  himself  as  a 
working  printer,  and  was  now  occupied  in  philanthropy. 
Stirred  up  by  Lundy,  he  succeeded  after  many  painful 
experiences,  in  gaol  and  among  mobs,  in  publishing  in 
Boston  on  January  i,  1831,  the  first  number  of  the 
Liberator.  In  it  he  said:  "I  shall  strenuously  contend 
for  the  immediate  enfranchisement  of  our  slave  popula- 
tion. I  will  be  as  hard  as  truth  and  as  uncompromising 
as  justice.  I  will  not  equivocate;  I  will  not  excuse;  I 
will  not  retreat  a  single  inch;  and  I  will  be  heard."  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  new  Abolitionist  movement. 
The  Abolitionists,  in  the  main,  were  impracticable  people; 
Garrison  in  the  end  proved  otherwise.  Under  the  exist- 
ing Constitution,  they  had  nothing  to  propose  but  that 
the  free  States  should  withdraw  from  "  their  covenant 
with  death  and  agreement  with  hell  "  —  in  other  words, 
from  the  Union,  —  whereby  they  would  not  have  liberated 
one  slave.  They  included  possibly  too  many  of  that 
sort  who  would  seek  salvation  by  repenting  of  other 
men's  sins.  But  even  these  did  not  indulge  this  pro- 
pensity at  their  ease,  for  by  this  time  the  politicians,  the 
polite  world,  the  mass  of  the  people,  the  churches  (even 
in  Boston),  not  merely  avoided  the  dangerous  topic; 
they  angrily  proscribed  it.  The  Abolitionists  took  their 
lives  in  their  hands,  and  sometimes  lost  them.  Only 
two  men  of  standing  helped  them:  Channing,  the  great 
preacher,  who  sacrificed  thereby  a  fashionable  congrega: 
tion;  and  Adams,  the  sour,  upright,  able  ex-President,  the 
only  ex-President  who  ever  made  for  himself  an  after- 
career  in  Congress.  In  1852  a  still  more  potent  ally 
came  to  their  help,  a  poor  lady,  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe,  who 
in  that  year  published  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  often  said 
to  have  influenced  opinion  more  than  any  other  book  of 
modern  times.  Broadly  speaking,  they  accomplished  two 
things.  If  they  did  not  gain  love  in  quarters  where  they 
might  have  looked  for  it,  they  gained  the  very  valuable 
hatred  of  their  enemies;  for  they  goaded  Southern  poli- 
ticians to  fury  and  madness,  of  which  the  first  symptom 
was  their  effort  to  suppress  Abolitionist  petitions  to  Con- 


OF 

ILLINOIS  LIBRARY 


52  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

gress.  But  above  all  they  educated  in  their  labour  of 
thirty  years  a  school  of  opinion,  not  entirely  in  agree- 
ment with  them  but  ready  one  day  to  revolt  with  decision 
from  continued  complicity  in  wrong. 

6.  Slavery  and  Southern  Society. 

In  the  midst  of  this  growing  America,  a  portion,  by 
no  means  sharply  marked  off,  and  accustomed  to  the  end 
to  think  itself  intensely  American,  was  distinguished 
by  a  peculiar  institution.  What  was  the  character  of 
that  institution  as  it  presented  itself  in  1830  and  onwards? 

Granting,  as  many  slave  holders  did,  though  their 
leaders  always  denied  it,  that  slavery  originated  in  foul 
wrongs  and  rested  legally  upon  a  vile  principle,  what 
did  it  look  like  in  its  practical  working?  Most  of  us 
have  received  from  two  different  sources  two  broad  but 
vivid  general  impressions  on  this  subject,  which  seem 
hard  to  reconcile  but  which  are  both  in  the  main  true. 
On  the  one  hand,  a  visitor  from  England  or  the  North, 
coming  on  a  visit  to  the  South,  or  in  earlier  days  to  the 
British  West  Indies,  expecting  perhaps  to  see  all  the 
horror  of  slavery  at  a  glance,  would  be,  as  a  young 
British  officer  once  wrote  home,  "  most  agreeably  un- 
deceived as  to  the  situation  of  these  poor  people."  He 
would  discern  at  once  that  a  Southern  gentleman  had 
no  more  notion  of  using  his  legal  privilege  to  be  cruel  to 
his  slave  than  he  himself  had  of  overdriving  his  old 
horse.  He  might  easily  on  the  contrary  find  quite  ordi- 
nary slave  owners  who  had  a  very  decided  sense  of 
responsibility  in  regard  to  their  human  chattels.  Around 
his  host's  house,  where  the  owner's  children,  petted  by  a 
black  nurse,  played  with  the  little  black  children  or  with 
some  beloved  old  negro,  he  might  see  that  pretty  aspect 
of  "  our  institution  at  the  South,"  which  undoubtedly 
created  in  many  young  Southerners  as  they  grew  up  a 
certain  amount  of  genuine  sentiment  in  favour  of  slavery. 
Riding  wider  afield  he  might  be  struck,  as  General  Sher- 
man was,  with  the  contentment  of  the  negroes  whom  he 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       53 

met  on  the  plantations.  On  enquiry  he  would  learn  that 
the  slave  in  old  age  was  sure  of  food  and  shelter  and 
free  from  work,  and  that  as  he  approached  old  age  his 
task  was  systematically  diminished.  As  to  excessive  toil 
at  any  time  of  life,  he  would  perhaps  conclude  that  it 
was  no  easy  thing  to  drive  a  gang  of  Africans  really  hard. 
He  would  be  assured,  quite  incorrectly,  that  the  slave's 
food  and  comfort  generally  were  greater  than  those  of 
factory  workers  in  the  North,  and,  perhaps  only  too 
truly,  that  his  privations  were  less  than  those  of  the 
English  agricultural  labourer  at  that  time.  A  wide  and 
careful  survey  of  the  subject  was  made  by  Frederick 
Law  Olmsted,  a  New  York  farmer,  who  wrote  what  but 
for  their  gloomy  subject  would  be  among  the  best  books 
of  travel.  He  presents  to  us  the  picture  of  a  prevail- 
ingly sullen,  sapless,  brutish  life,  but  certainly  not  of 
acute  misery  or  habitual  oppression.  A  Southerner  old 
enough  to  remember  slavery  would  probably  not  question 
the  accuracy  of  his  details,  but  would  insist,  very  likely 
with  truth,  that  there  was  more  human  happiness  there 
than  an  investigator  on  such  a  quest  would  readily  dis- 
cover. Even  on  large  plantations  in  the  extreme  South, 
where  the  owner  only  lived  part  of  the  year,  and  most 
things  had  to  be  left  to  an  almost  always  unsatisfactory 
overseer,  the  verdict  of  the  observer  was  apt  to  be  "  not 
so  bad  as  I  expected." 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  us  know  Longfellow's 
grim  poem  of  the  Hunted  Negro.  It  is  a  true  picture  of 
the  life  led  in  the  Dismal  Swamps  of  Virginia  by  numbers 
of  skulking  fugitives,  till  the  industry  of  negro-hunting, 
conducted  with  hounds  of  considerable  value,  ultimately 
made  their  lairs  untenable.  The  scenes  in  the  auction 
room  where,  perhaps  on  the  death  or  failure  of  their 
owner,  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  were 
constantly  being  severed,  and  negresses  were  habitually 
puffed  as  brood  mares;  the  gentleman  who  had  lately  sold 
his  half-brother,  to  be  sent  far  south,  because  he  was 
impudent;  the  devilish  cruelty  with  which  almost  the  only 
recorded  slave  insurrection  was  stamped  out;  the  chase 


54  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  capture  and  return  in  fetters  of  slaves  who  had 
escaped  north,  or,  it  might  be,  of  free  negroes  in  their 
place;  the  advertisements  for  such  runaways,  which 
Dickens  collected,  and  which  described  each  by  his  scars 
or  mutilations;  the  systematic  slave  breeding,  for  the 
supply  of  the  cotton  States,  which  had  become  a  staple 
industry  of  the  once  glorious  Virginia;  the  demand  aris- 
ing for  the  restoration  of  the  African  slave  trade — all 
these  were  realities.  The  Southern  people,  in  the  phrase 
of  President  Wilson,  "  knew  that  their  lives  were  honour- 
able, their  relations  with  their  slaves  humane,  their  re- 
sponsibility for  the  existence  of  slavery  amongst  them 
remote  ";  they  burned  with  indignation  when  the  whole 
South  was  held  responsible  for  the  occasional  abuses 
of  slavery.  But  the  harsh  philanthropist,  who  denounced 
them  indiscriminately,  merely  dwelt  on  those  aspects  of 
slavery  which  came  to  his  knowledge  or  which  he  actually 
saw  on  the  border  line.  And  the  occasional  abuses,  how- 
ever occasional,  were  made  by  the  deliberate  choice  of 
Southern  statesmanship  an  essential  part  of  the  institu- 
tion. Honourable  and  humane  men  in  the  South  scorned 
exceedingly  the  slave  hunter  and  the  slave  dealer.  A 
candid  slave  owner,  discussing  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," 
found  one  detail  flagrantly  unfair;  the  ruined  master 
would  have  had  to  sell  his  slaves  to  the  brute,  Legree,  but 
for  the  world  he  would  not  have  shaken  hands  with  him. 
'  Your  children,"  exclaimed  Lincoln,  "  may  play  with 
the  little  black  children,  but  they  must  not  play  with 
his  " — the  slave  dealer's,  or  the  slave  driver's,  or  the 
slave  hunter's.  By  that  fact  alone,  as  he  bitingly  but 
unanswerably  insisted,  the  whole  decent  society  of  the 
South  condemned  the  foundation  on  which  it  rested. 

It  is  needless  to  discuss  just  how  dark  or  how  fair 
American  slavery  in  its  working  should  be  painted.  The 
moderate  conclusions  which  are  quite  sufficient  for  our 
purpose  are  uncontested.  First,  this  much  must  certainly 
be  conceded  to  those  who  would  defend  the  slave  system, 
that  in  the  case  of  the  average  slave  it  was  very  doubt- 
ful whether  his  happiness  (apart  from  that  of  future 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       55 

generations)  could  be  increased  by  suddenly  turning  him 
into  a  free  man  working  for  a  wage;  justice  would  cer- 
tainly have  demanded  that  the  change  should  be  ac- 
companied by  other  provisions  for  his  benefit.  But, 
secondly,  on  the  refractory  negro,  more  vicious,  or  some- 
times, one  may  suspect,  more  manly  than  his  fellows,  the 
system  was  likely  to  act  barbarously.  Thirdly,  every  slave 
family  was  exposed  to  the  risk,  on  such  occasions  as  the 
death  or  great  impoverishment  of  its  owner,  of  being 
ruthlessly  torn  asunder,  and  the  fact  that  negroes  often 
rebounded  or  seemed  to  rebound  from  sorrows  of  this 
sort  with  surprising  levity  does  not  much  lessen  the  horror 
of  it.  Fourthly,  it  is  inherent  in  slavery  that  its  burden 
should  be  most  felt  precisely  by  the  best  minds  and 
strongest  characters  among  the  slaves.  And,  though  the 
capacity  of  the  negroes  for  advancement  could  not  then 
and  cannot  yet  be  truly  measured,  yet  it  existed,  and 
the  policy  of  the  South  shut  the  door  upon  it.  Lastly, 
the  system  abounded  in  brutalising  influences  upon  a  large 
number  of  white  people  who  were  accessory  to  it,  and 
notoriously  it  degraded  the  poor  or  "  mean  whites,"  for 
whom  it  left  no  industrial  opening,  and  among  whom  it 
caused  work  to  be  despised. 

There  is  thus  no  escape  from  Lincoln's  judgment: 
"  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is  wrong."  It  does 
not  follow  that  the  way  to  right  the  wrong  was  simple, 
or  that  instant  and  unmitigated  emancipation  was  the 
best  way.  But  it  does  follow  that,  failing  this,  it  was 
for  the  statesmen  of  the  South  to  devise  a  policy  by  which 
the  most  flagrant  evils  should  be  stopped,  and,  however 
cautiously  and  experimentally,  the  raising  of  the  status 
of  the  slave  should  be  proceeded  with.  It  does  not 
follow  that  the  people  who,  on  one  pretext  or  another, 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  evil  of  the  system,  while  they  tried 
to  keep  their  personal  dealing  humane,  can  be  sweepingly 
condemned  by  any  man.  But  it  does  follow  that  a 
deliberate  and  sustained  policy  which,  neglecting  all  re- 
form, strove  at  all  costs  to  perpetuate  the  system  and 
extend  it  to  wider  regions,  was  as  criminal  a  policy  as 


56  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ever  lay  at  the  door  of  any  statesmen.  And  this,  in  fact, 
became  the  policy  of  the  South. 

"  The  South "  meant,  for  political  purposes,  the 
owners  of  land  and  slaves  in  the  greater  part  of  the 
States  in  which  slavery  was  lawful.  The  poor  whites 
never  acquired  the  political  importance  of  the  working 
classes  in  the  North,  and  count  for  little  in  the  story. 
Some  of  the  more  northerly  slave  States  partook  in  a 
greater  degree  of  the  conditions  and  ideas  of  the  North 
and  were  doubtfully  to  be  reckoned  with  the  South. 
Moreover,  there  is  a  tract  of  mountainous  country,  lying 
between  the  Atlantic  sea-board  and  the  basin  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  extending  southwards  to  the  borders  of 
Georgia  and  Alabama,  of  which  the  very  vigorous  and 
independent  inhabitants  were  and  are  in  many  ways  a 
people  apart,  often  cherishing  to  this  day  family  feuds 
which  are  prosecuted  in  the  true  spirit  of  the  Icelandic 
Sagas. 

The  South,  excluding  these  districts,  was  predominantly 
Democratic  in  politics,  and  its  leaders  owed  some  allegi- 
ance to  the  tradition  of  Radicals  like  Jefferson.  But  it 
was  none  the  less  proud  of  its  aristocracy  and  of  the 
permeating  influence  of  aristocratic  manners  and  tradi- 
tions. A  very  large  number  of  Southerners  felt  them- 
selves to  be  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  felt  further  that 
there  were  few  or  none  like  them  among  the  "  Yankee  " 
traders  of  the  North.  A  claim  of  that  sort  is  likely  to 
be  aggressively  made  by  those  who  have  least  title  to 
make  it,  and,  as  strife  between  North  and  South  grew 
hotter,  the  gentility  of  the  latter  infected  with  additional 
vulgarity  the  political  controversy  of  private  life  and  even 
of  Congress.  But,  as  observant  Northerners  were  quite 
aware,  these  pretensions  had  a  foundation  of  fact.  An 
Englishman,  then  or  now,  in  chance  meetings  with  Ameri- 
cans of  either  section,  would  at  once  be  aware  of  some- 
thing indefinable  in  their  bearing  to  which  he  was  a 
stranger;  but  in  the  case  of  the  Southerner  the  strange- 
ness would  often  have  a  positive  charm,  such  as  may  be 
found  also  among  people  of  the  Old  World  under  south- 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       57 

crn  latitudes  and  relatively  primitive  conditions.  Newly- 
gotten  and  ill-carried  wealth  was  in  those  days  (Mr. 
Olmsted,  of  New  York  State,  assures  us)  as  offensive  in 
the  more  recently  developed  and  more  prosperous  parts 
of  the  South  as  in  New  York  City  itself;  and  throughout 
the  South  sound  instruction  and  intellectual  activity  were 
markedly  lacking — indeed,  there  is  no  serious  Southern 
literature  by  which  we  can  check  these  impressions  of 
his.  Comparing  the  masses  of  moderately  well-to-do 
and  educated  people  with  whom  he  associated  in  the 
North  and  in  the  South,  he  finds  them  both  free  from 
the  peculiar  vulgarity  which,  we  may  be  pained  to  know, 
he  had  discovered  among  us  in  England;  he  finds  honesty 
and  dishonesty  in  serious  matters  of  conduct  as  prevalent 
in  one  section  as  in  the  other;  he  finds  the  Northerner 
better  taught  and  more  alert  in  mind;  but  he  ascribes 
to  him  an  objectionable  quality  of  "  smartness,"  a  de- 
termination to  show  you  that  he  is  a  stirring  and  pushing 
fellow,  from  which  the  Southerner  is  wholly  free;  and  he 
finds  that  the  Southerner  has  derived  from  home  in- 
fluences and  from  boarding  schools  in  which  the  influence 
of  many  similar  homes  is  concentrated,  not  indeed  any 
great  refinement,  but  a  manner  which  is  "  more  true,  more 
quiet,  more  modestly  self-assured,  more  dignified."  This 
advantage,  we  are  to  understand,  is  diffused  over  a  com- 
paratively larger  class  than  in  England.  Beyond  this  he 
discerns  in  a  few  parts  of  the  South  and  notably  in  South 
Carolina  a  somewhat  inaccessible,  select  society,  of  which 
the  nucleus  is  formed  by  a  few  (incredibly  few)  old 
Colonial  families  which  have  not  gone  under,  and  which 
altogether  is  so  small  that  some  old  gentlewomen  can 
enumerate  all  the  members  of  it.  Few  as  they  are,  these 
form  "  unquestionably  a  wealthy  and  remarkably  gener- 
ous, refined,  and  accomplished  first  class,  clinging  with 
some  pertinacity,  although  with  too  evident  an  effort, 
to  the  traditional  manners  and  customs  of  an  established 
gentry." 

No  doubt  the  sense  of  high  breeding,  which  was  com- 
mon in  the  South,  went  beyond  mere  manners;  it  played 


58  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

its  part  in  making  the  struggle  of  the  Southern  population, 
including  the  "  mean  whites,"  in  the  Civil  War  one  of 
the  most  heroic,  if  one  of  the  most  mistaken,  in  which 
a  whole  population  has  ever  been  engaged;  it  went  along 
with  integrity  and  a  high  average  of  governing  capacity 
among  public  men;  and  it  fitted  the  gentry  of  the  South 
to  contribute,  when  they  should  choose,  an  element  of 
great  value  to  the  common  life  of  America.  As  it  was, 
the  South  suffered  to  the  full  the  political  degeneration 
which  threatens  every  powerful  class  which,  with  a  dis- 
tinct class  interest  of  its  own,  is  secluded  from  real  con- 
tact with  competing  classes  with  other  interests  and  other 
ideas.  It  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  all  individual  South- 
erners liked  the  policy  which  they  learnt  to  support  in 
docile  masses.  But  their  very  qualities  of  loyalty  made 
them  the  more  ready,  under  accepted  and  respected 
leaders,  to  adopt  political  aims  and  methods  which  no 
man  now  recalls  without  regret. 

The  connection  between  slavery  and  politics  was  this: 
as  population  slowly  grew  in  the  South,  and  as  the  land 
in  the  older  States  became  to  some  extent  exhausted,  the 
desire  for  fresh  territory  in  which  cultivation  by  slaves 
could  flourish  became  stronger  and  stronger.  This  was 
the  reason  for  which  the  South  became  increasingly  aware 
of  a  sectional  interest  in  politics.  In  all  other  respects  the 
community  of  public  interests,  of  business  dealings,  and 
of  general  intercourse  was  as  great  between  North  and 
South  as  between  East  and  West.  It  is  certain  that 
throughout  the  South,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of 
South  Carolina,  political  instinct  and  patriotic  pride  would 
have  made  the  idea  of  separation  intolerable  upon  any 
ground  except  that  of  slavery.  In  regard  to  this  matter 
of  dispute  a  peculiar  phenomenon  is  to  be  observed.  The 
quarrel  grew  not  out  of  any  steady  opposition  between 
North  and  South,  but  out  of  the  habitual  domination  of 
the  country  by  the  South  and  the  long-continued  sub- 
mission of  the  North  to  that  domination. 

For  the  North  had  its  full  share  of  blame  for  the  long 
course  of  proceedings  which  prepared  the  coming  tragedy, 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       59 

and  the  most  impassioned  writers  on  the  side  of  the 
Union  during  the  Civil  War  have  put  that  blame  highest. 
The  South  became  arrogant  and  wrong-headed,  and  no 
defence  is  possible  for  the  chief  acts  of  Southern  policy 
which  will  be  recorded  later;  but  the  North  was  abject. 
To  its  own  best  sons  it  seemed  to  have  lost  both  its 
conscience  and  its  manhood,  and  to  be  stifled  in  the  coils 
of  its  own  miserable  political  apparatus.  Certainly  the 
prevailing  attitude  of  the  Northern  to  the  Southern  poli- 
ticians was  that  of  truckling.  And  Southerners  who  went 
to  Washington  had  a  further  reason  for  acquiring  a  fatal 
sense  of  superiority  to  the  North.  The  tradition  of 
popular  government  which  maintained  itself  in  the  South 
caused  men  who  were  respected,  in  private  life,  and  were 
up  to  a  point  capable  leaders,  who  were,  in  short,  repre- 
sentative, to  be  sent  to  Congress  and  to  be  kept  there. 
The  childish  perversion  of  popular  government  which 
took  hold  of  the  newer  and  more  unsettled  population  in 
the  North  led  them  to  send  to  Congress  an  ever-changing 
succession  of  unmeritable  and  sometimes  shady  people. 
The  eventual  stirring  of  the  mind  of  the  North  which 
so  closely  concerns  this  biography  was  a  thing  hard  to 
bring  about,  and  to  the  South  it  brought  a  great  shock 
of  surprise. 

7.  Intellectual  Development. 

No  survey  of  the  political  movements  of  this  period 
should  conclude  without  directing  attention  to  something 
more  important,  which  cannot  be  examined  here.  In 
the  years  from  1830  till  some  time  after  the  death  of 
Lincoln,  America  made  those  contributions  to  the  litera- 
ture of  our  common  language  which,  though  neither  her 
first  nor  her  last,  seemed  likely  to  be  most  permanently 
valued.  The  learning  and  literature  of  America  at  that 
time  centred  round  Boston  and  Harvard  University  in  the 
adjacent  city  of  Cambridge,  and  no  invidious  comparison 
is  intended  or  will  be  felt  if  they,  with  their  poets  and 
historians  and  men  of  letters  at  that  time,  with  their 
peculiar  atmosphere,  instinct  then  and  now  with  a  life 


(So  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

athletic,  learned,  business-like  and  religious,  arc  taken  to 
show  the  dawning  capacities  of  the  new  nation.  No  places 
in  the  United  States  exhibit  more  visibly  the  kinship  of 
America  with  England,  yet  in  none  certainly  can  a 
stranger  see  more  readily  that  America  is  independent  of 
the  Old  World  in  something  more  than  politics.  Many 
of  their  streets  and  buildings  would  in  England  seem 
redolent  of  the  past,  yet  no  cities  of  the  Eastern  States 
played  so  large  a  part  in  the  development,  material  and 
mental,  of  the  raw  and  vigorous  West.  The  limitations 
of  their  greatest  writers  are  in  a  manner  the  sign  of  their 
achievement.  It  would  have  been  contrary  to  all  human 
analogy  if  a  country,  in  such  an  early  stage  of  creation 
out  of  such  a  chaos,  had  put  forth  books  marked  strongly 
as  its  own  and  yet  as  the  products  of  a  mature  national 
mind.  It  would  also  have  been  surprising  if  since  the 
Civil  War  the  rush  of  still  more  appalling  and  more  com- 
plex practical  problems  had  not  obstructed  for  a  while 
the  flow  of  imaginative  or  scientific  production.  But  the 
growth  of  those  relatively  early  years  was  great.  Boston 
had  been  the  home  of  a  loveless  Christianity;  its  insur^ 
rection  in  the  War  of  Independence  had  been  soiled  by 
shifty  dealing  and  mere  acidity;  but  Boston  from  the 
days  of  Emerson  to  those  of  Phillips  Brooks  radiated 
a  temper  and  a  mental  force  that  was  manly,  tender,  and 
clean.  The  man  among  these  writers  about  whose  exact 
rank,  neither  low  nor  very  high  among  poets,  there  can 
be  least  dispute  was  Longfellow.  He  might  seem  from 
his  favourite  subjects  to  be  hardly  American;  it  was  his 
deliberately  chosen  task  to  bring  to  the  new  country  some 
savour  of  things  gentle  and  mellow  caught  from  the  litera- 
ture of  Europe.  But,  in  the  first  place,  no  writer  could 
in  the  detail  of  his  work  have  been  more  racy  of  that 
New  England  countryside  which  lay  round  his  home; 
and,  in  the  second  place,  no  writer  could  have  spoken 
more  unerringly  to  the  ear  of  the  whole  wide  America 
of  which  his  home  was  a  little  part.  It  seems  strange  to 
couple  the  name  of  this  mild  and  scholarly  man  with  the 
thought  of  that  crude  Western  world  to  which  we  must 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATION       61 

in  a  moment  pass.  But  the  connection  is  real  and  vital. 
It  is  well  shown  in  the  appreciation  written  of  him  and 
his  fellows  by  the  American  writer  who  most  violently 
contrasts  with  him,  Walt  Whitman. 

A  student  of  American  history  may  feel  something  like 
the  experience  which  is  common  among  travellers  in 
America.  When  they  come  home  they  cannot  tell  their 
friends  what  really  interested  them.  Ugly  things  and 
very  dull  things  are  prominent  in  their  story,  as  in  the 
tales  of  American  humorists.  The  general  impression 
they  convey  is  of  something  tiresomely  extensive,  distract- 
ingly  miscellaneous,  and  yet  insufferably  monotonous. 
But  that  is  not  what  they  mean.  They  had  better  not 
seek  to  express  themselves  by  too  definite  instances.  They 
will  be  understood  and  believed  when  they  say  that  to 
them  America,  with  its  vast  spaces  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
does  present  itself  as  one  country,  not  less  worthy  than 
any  other  of  the  love  which  it  has  actually  inspired;  a 
country  which  is  the  home  of  distinctive  types  of  man- 
hood and  womanhood,  bringing  their  own  addition  to  the 
varying  forms  in  which  kindness  and  courage  and  truth 
make  themselves  admirable  to  mankind.  The  soul  of 
a  single  people  seems  to  be  somewhere  present  in  that 
great  mass,  no  less  than  in  some  tiny  city  State  of  antiq- 
uity. Only  it  has  to  struggle,  submerged  evermore  by  a 
flood  of  newcomers,  and  defeated  evermore  by  difficulties 
quite  unlike  those  of  other  lands;  and  it  struggles  seem- 
ingly with  undaunted  and  with  rational  hope. 

Americans  are  fond  of  discussing  Americanism.  Very 
often  they  select  as  a  pattern  of  it  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
man  who  kept  the  North  together  but  has  been  pro- 
nounced to  have  been  a  Southerner  in  his  inherited  char- 
acter. Whether  he  was  so  typical  or  not,  it  is  the  central 
fact  of  this  biography  that  no  man  ever  pondered  more 
deeply  in  his  own  way,  or  answered  more  firmly  the  ques- 
tion whether  there  was  indeed  an  American  nationality 
worth  preserving. 


CHAPTER  III 

LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER 

I.    Life  at  New  Salem. 

FROM  this  talk  of  large  political  movements  we  have 
to  recall  ourselves  to  a  young  labouring  man  with  hardly 
any  schooling,  naturally  and  incurably  uncouth,  but  with 
a  curious,  quite  modest,  impulse  to  assert  a  kindly 
ascendency  over  the  companions  whom  chance  threw  in 
his  way,  and  with  something  of  the  gift,  which  odd,  shy 
people  often  possess,  for  using  their  very  oddity  as  a 
weapon  in  their  struggles.  In  the  conditions  of  real 
equality  which  still  prevailed  in  a  newly  settled  country 
it  is  not  wonderful  that  he  made  his  way  into  political 
life  when  he  was  twenty-five,  but  it  was  not  till  twenty 
years  later  that  he  played  an  important  part  in  events 
of  enduring  significance. 

Thus  the  many  years  of  public  activity  with  which  we 
are  concerned  in  this  and  the  following  chapter  belong 
rather  to  his  apprenticeship  than  to  his  life's  work;  and 
this  apprenticeship  at  first  sight  contrasts  more  strongly 
with  his  fame  afterwards  than  does  his  boyhood  of 
poverty  and  comparatively  romantic  hardship.  For 
many  poor  boys  have  lived  to  make  a  great  mark  on 
history,  but  as  a  rule  they  have  entered  early  on  a  life 
either  of  learning  or  of  adventure  or  of  large  business. 
But  the  affairs  in  which  Lincoln  early  became  immersed 
have  an  air  of  pettiness,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of 
most  educated  men  and  women  in  the  Eastern  States  or 
in  Europe,  many  of  the  associates  and  competitors  of 
his  early  manhood,  to  whom  he  had  to  look  up  as  his 
superiors  in  knowledge,  would  certainly  have  seemed 
crude  people  with  a  narrow  horizon.  Indeed,  till  he  was 
called  upon  to  take  supreme  control  of  very  great  mat- 
da 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        63 

ters,  Lincoln  must  have  had  singularly  little  intercourse 
either  with  men  versed  in  great  affairs  or  with  men  of 
approved  intellectual  distinction.  But  a  mind  too  original 
to  be  subdued  to  its  surroundings  found  much  that  was 
stimulating  in  this  time  when  Illinois  was  beginning 
rapidly  to  fill  up.  There  were  plenty  of  men  with 
shrewd  wits  and  robust  character  to  be  met  with,  and 
the  mental  atmosphere  which  surrounded  him  was  one 
of  keen  interest  in  life.  Lincoln  eventually  stands  out 
as  a  surprising  figure  from  among  the  other  lawyers  and 
little  politicians  of  Illinois,  as  any  great  man  does  from 
any  crowd,  but  some  tribute  is  due  to  the  undistinguished 
and  historically  uninteresting  men  whose  generous  ap- 
preciation gave  rapid  way  to  the  poor,  queer  youth,  and 
ultimately  pushed  him  into  a  greater  arena  as  their 
selected  champion. 

In  1831,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  Lincoln,  returning 
from  his  New  Orleans  voyage,  settled  in  New  Salem  to 
await  the  arrival  of  his  patron,  Denton  Offutt,  with  the 
goods  for  a  new  store  in  which  Lincoln  was  to  be  his 
assistant.  The  village  itself  was  three  years  old.  It 
never  got  much  beyond  a  population  of  one  hundred, 
and  like  many  similar  little  towns  of  the  West  it  has 
long  since  perished  off  the  earth.  But  it  was  a  busy  place 
for  a  while,  and,  contrary  to  what  its  name  might  sug- 
gest, it  aspired  to  be  rather  fast.  It  was  a  cock-fighting 
and  whisky-drinking  society  into  which  Lincoln  was 
launched.  He  managed  to  combine  strict  abstinence 
from  liquor  with  keen  participation  in  all  its  other  diver- 
sions. One  departure  from  total  abstinence  stands 
alleged  among  the  feats  of  strength  for  which  he  became 
noted.  He  hoisted  a  whisky  barrel,  of  unspecified  but 
evidently  considerable  content,  on  to  his  knees  in  a  squat- 
ting posture  and  drank  from  the  bunghole.  But  this 
very  arduous  potation  stood  alone.  Offutt  was  some  time 
before  he  arrived  with  his  goods,  and  Lincoln  lived  by 
odd  jobs.  At  the  very  beginning  one  Mentor  Graham, 
a  schoolmaster  officiating  in  some  election,  employed 
him  as  a  clerk,  and  the  clerk  seized  the  occasion  to  make 


64  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

himself  well  known  to  New  Salem  as  a  story-teller. 
Then  there  was  a  heavy  job  at  rail-splitting,  and  another 
job  in  navigating  the  Sangamon  River.  Offutt's  store 
was  at  last  set  up,  and  for  about  a  year  the  assistant 
in  this  important  establishment  had  valuable  opportuni- 
ties of  conversation  with  all  New  Salem.  He  had  also 
leisure  for  study.  He  had  mentioned  to  the  aforesaid 
Mentor  Graham  his  "  notion  to  study  English  gram- 
mar," and  had  been  introduced  to  a  work  called  "  Kirk- 
ham's  Grammar,"  which  by  a  walk  of  some  miles  he 
could  borrow  from  a  neighbour.  This  he  would  read, 
lying  full  length  on  the  counter  with  his  head  on  a 
parcel  of  calico.  At  other  odd  times  he  would  work 
away  at  arithmetic.  Offutt's  kindly  interest  procured 
him  distinction  in  another  field.  At  Clary's  Grove,  near 
New  Salem,  lived  a  formidable  set  of  young  ruffians, 
over  whose  somewhat  disguised  chivalry  of  temper  the 
staid  historian  of  Lincoln's  youth  becomes  rapturous. 
They  were  given  to  wrecking  the  store  of  any  New  Salem 
tradesman  who  offended  them;  so  it  shows  some  spirit 
in  Mr.  Denton  Offutt  that  he  backed  his  Abraham 
Lincoln  to  beat  their  Jack  Armstrong  in  a  wrestling 
match.  He  did  beat  him;  moreover,  some  charm  in  the 
way  he  bore  himself  made  him  thenceforth  not  hated 
but  beloved  of  Clary's  Grove  in  general,  and  the  Arm- 
strongs in  particular.  Hannah  Armstrong,  Jack's  wifet 
thereafter  mended  and  patched  his  clothes  for  him,  and, 
years  later,  he  had  the  satisfaction,  as  their  unfeed  advo» 
cate,  of  securing  the  acquittal  of  their  son  from  a 
charge  of  murder,  of  which  there  is  some  reason  to 
hope  he  may  not  have  been  guilty.  It  is,  by  the  way, 
a  relief  to  tell  that  there  once  was  a  noted  wrestling 
match  in  which  Lincoln  was  beaten;  it  is  characteristic 
of  the  country  that  his  friends  were  sure  there  was  foul 
play,  and  characteristic  of  him  that  he  indignantly 
denied  it. 

Within  a  year  Offutt's  store,  in  the  phrase  of  the  time, 
"  petered  out,"  leaving  Lincoln  shiftless.  But  the  vic- 
tor of  Clary's  Grove,  with  his  added  mastery  of  "  Kirk- 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        65 

ham's  Grammar,"  was  now  ripe  for  public  life.  More- 
over, his  experience  as  a  waterman  gave  him  ideas  on 
the  question,  which  then  agitated  his  neighbours,  whether 
the  Sangamon  River  could  be  made  navigable.  He  had 
a  scheme  of  his  own  for  doing  this;  and  in  the  spring 
of  1832  he  wrote  to  the  local  paper  a  boyish  but  mod- 
est and  sensible  statement  of  his  views  and  ambitions, 
announcing  that  he  would  be  a  candidate  in  the  autumn 
elections  for  the  State  Legislature. 

Meanwhile  he  had  his  one  experience  of  soldiering. 
The  Indian  chief,  Black  Hawk,  who  had  agreed  to  abide 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  broke  the  treaty  and  led  his  war- 
riors back  into  their  former  haunts  in  Northern  Illinois. 
The  Governor  of  the  State  called  for  volunteers,  and 
Lincoln  became  one.  He  obtained  the  elective  rank  of 
captain  of  his  company,  and  contrived  to  maintain  some 
sort  of  order  in  that,  doubtless  brave,  but  undisciplined 
body.  He  saw  no  fighting,  but  he  could  earn  his  living 
for  some  months,  and  stored  up  material  for  effective 
chaff  in  Congress  long  afterwards  about  the  military 
glory  which  General  Cass's  supporters  for  the  Presi- 
dency wished  to  attach  to  their  candidate.  His  most 
glorious  exploit  consisted  in  saving  from  his  own  men 
a  poor  old  friendly  Indian  who  had  fallen  among  them. 
A  letter  of  credentials,  which  the  helpless  creature  pro- 
duced, was  pronounced  a  forgery  and  he  was  about  to 
be  hanged  as  a  spy,  when  Lincoln  appeared  on  the  scene, 
"  swarthy  with  resolution  and  rage,"  and  somehow  ter- 
rified his  disorderly  company  into  dropping  their  prey. 

The  war  ended  in  time  for  a  brief  candidature,  and 
a  supporter  of  his  at  the  time  preserved  a  record  of 
one  of  his  speeches.  His  last  important  speech  will 
hereafter  be  given  in  full  for  other  reasons;  this  may 
be  so  given  too,  for  it  is  not  a  hundred  words  long: 
"  Fellow  Citizens,  I  presume  you  all  know  who  I  am. 
I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  have  been  solicited 
by  many  friends  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  Legisla- 
ture. My  politics  are  short  and  sweet  like  the  old 
woman's  dance.  I  am  in  favour  of  a  national  bank.  I 


66  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

am  in  favour  of  the  internal  improvement  system  and 
a  high  protective  tariff.  These  are  my  sentiments 
and  political  principles.  If  elected,  I  shall  be  thankful; 
if  not,  it  will  be  all  the  same." 

To  this  succinct  declaration  of  policy  may  be  added 
from  his  earlier  letter  that  he  advocated  a  law  against 
usury,  and  laws  for  the  improvement  of  education.  The 
principles  of  the  speech  are  those  which  the  new  Whig 
party  was  upholding  against  the  Democrats  under  Jack- 
son (the  President)  and  Van  Buren.  Lincoln's  neigh- 
bours, like  the  people  of  Illinois  generally,  were  almost 
entirely  on  the  side  of  the  Democrats.  It  is  interesting 
that  however  he  came  by  his  views,  they  were  early  and 
permanently  fixed  on  the  side  then  unpopular  in  Illinois; 
and  it  is  interesting  that  though,  naturally,  not  elected, 
he  secured  very  nearly  the  whole  of  the  votes  of  his 
immediate  neighbourhood. 

The  penniless  Lincoln  was  now  hankering  to  become 
a  lawyer,  though  with  some  thoughts  of  the  more 
practicable  career  of  a  blacksmith.  Unexpectedly,  how- 
ever, he  was  tempted  into  his  one  venture,  singularly 
unsuccessful,  in  business.  Two  gentlemen  named  Hern- 
don,  cousins  of  a  biographer  of  Lincoln's,  started  a  store 
in  New  Salem  and  got  tired  of  it.  One  sold  his  share 
to  a  Mr.  Berry,  the  other  sold  his  to  Lincoln.  The  lat- 
ter sale  was  entirely  on  credit — no  money  passed  at  the 
time,  because  there  was  no  money.  The  vendor  ex- 
plained afterwards  that  he  relied  solely  on  Lincoln's 
honesty.  He  had  to  wait  a  long  while  for  full  payment, 
but  what  is  known  of  storekeeping  in  New  Salem  shows 
that  he  did  very  well  for  himself  in  getting  out  of  his 
venture  as  he  did.  Messrs.  Berry  and  Lincoln  next 
acquired,  likewise  for  credit,  the  stock  and  goodwill  of 
two  other  storekeepers,  one  of  them  the  victim  of  a 
raid  from  Clary's  Grove.  The  senior  partner  then 
applied  himself  diligently  to  personal  consumption  of  the 
firm's  liquid  goods;  the  junior  member  of  the  firm  was 
devoted  in  part  to  intellectual  and  humorous  converse 
with  the  male  customers,  but  a  fatal  shyness  prevented 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        67 

him  from  talking  to  the  ladies.  For  the  rest,  he  walked 
long  distances  to  borrow  books,  got  through  Gibbon  and 
through  Rollin's  "  History  of  the  World,"  began  his 
study  of  Blackstone,  and  acquired  a  settled  habit  of  read- 
ing novels.  So  business  languished.  Early  in  1833 
Berry  and  Lincoln  sold  out  to  another  adventurer.  This 
also  was  a  credit  transaction.  The  purchaser  without 
avoidable  delay  failed  and  disappeared.  Berry  then 
died  of  drink,  leaving  to  Lincoln  the  sole  responsibility 
for  the  debts  of  the  partnership.  Lincoln  could  with  no 
difficulty  and  not  much  reproach  have  freed  himself  by 
bankruptcy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  ultimately  paid 
everything,  but  it  took  him  about  fifteen  years  of  striv- 
ing and  pinching  himself. 

Lincoln  is  one  of  the  many  public  characters  to  whom 
the  standing  epithet  "honest"  became  attached;  in  his 
case  the  claim  to  this  rested  originally  on  the  only  con- 
clusive authority,  that  of  his  creditors.  But  there  is 
equally  good  authority,  that  of  his  biographer,  William 
Herndon,  for  many  years  his  partner  as  a  lawyer,  that 
"  he  had  no  money  sense."  This  must  be  understood 
with  the  large  qualification  that  he  meant  to  pay  his  way 
and,  unlike  the  great  statesmen  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury in  England,  did  pay  it.  But,  though  with  much 
experience  of  poverty  in  his  early  career,  he  never  devel- 
oped even  a  reasonable  desire  to  be  rich.  Wealth  re- 
mained in  his  view  "  a  superfluity  of  the  things  one  does 
not  want."  He  was  always  interested  in  mathematics, 
but  mainly  as  a  discipline  in  thinking,  and  partly,  per- 
haps, in  association  with  mechanical  problems  of  which 
he  was  fond  enough  to  have  once  in  his  life  patented 
an  invention.  The  interest  never  led  him  to  take  to 
accounts  or  to  long-sighted  financial  provisions.  In  later 
days,  when  he  received  a  payment  for  his  fees,  his  part- 
ner's share  would  be  paid  then  and  there;  and  perhaps 
the  rent  would  be  paid,  and  the  balance  would  be 
spent  at  once  in  groceries  and  other  goods  likely  to  be 
soon  wanted,  including  at  long  intervals,  when  the  need 
was  very  urgent,  a  new  hat. 


68  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

These  are  amiable  personal  traits,  but  they  mark  the 
limitations  of  his  capacity  as  a  statesman.  The  chief 
questions  which  agitated  the  Illinois  Legislature  were 
economic,  and  so  at  first  were  the  issues  between  Whigs 
and  Democrats  in  Federal  policy.  Lincoln,  though  he 
threw  himself  into  these  affairs  with  youthful  fervour, 
would  appear  never  to  have  had  much  grasp  of  such 
matters.  "  In  this  respect  alone,"  writes  an  admirer, 
"  I  have  always  considered  Mr.  Lincoln  a  weak  man." 
It  is  only  when  (rarely,  at  first)  constitutional  or  moral 
issues  emerge  that  his  politics  become  interesting.  We 
can  guess  the  causes  which  attached  him  to  the  Whigs. 
As  the  party  out  of  power,  and  in  Illinois  quite  out  of 
favour,  they  had  doubtless  some  advantage  in  character. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  greatest  minds  among  American 
statesmen  of  that  day,  Webster  and  Clay,  were  Whigs. 
Lincoln's  simple  and  quite  reasonable,  if  inconclusive, 
argument  for  Protection,  can  be  found  among  his 
speeches  of  some  years  later.  And  schemes  of  internal 
development  certainly  fired  his  imagination. 

After  his  failure  in  business  Lincoln  subsisted  for  a 
while  on  odd  jobs  for  farmers,  but  was  soon  employed 
as  assistant  surveyor  by  John  Calhoun,  then  surveyor 
of  the  county.  This  gentleman,  who  had  been  educated 
as  a  lawyer  but  "  taught  school  in  preference,"  was  a 
keen  Democrat,  and  had  to  assure  Lincoln  that  office  as 
his  assistant  would  not  necessitate  his  desertion  of  his 
principles.  He  was  a  clever  man,  and  Lincoln  remem- 
bered him  long  after  as  the  most  formidable  antagonist 
he  ever  met  in  debate.  With  the  help,  again,  of  Mentor 
Graham,  Lincoln  soon  learned  the  surveyor's  business. 
He  continued  at  this  work  till  he  was  able  to  start  as  a 
lawyer,  and  there  is  evidence  that  his  surveys  of  prop- 
erty were  done  with  extreme  accuracy.  Soon  he  further 
obtained  the  local  Postmastership.  This,  the  only  posi- 
tion except  the  Presidency  itself  which  he  ever  held  in 
the  Federal  Government,  was  not  onerous,  for  the  mails 
were  infrequent;  he  "carried  the  office  around  in  his 
hat";  we  are  glad  to  be  told  that  "his  administration 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        69 

gave  satisfaction."  Once  calamity  threatened  him;  a 
creditor  distrained  on  the  horse  and  the  instruments 
necessary  to  his  surveyorship ;  but  Lincoln  was  reputed 
to  be  a  helpful  fellow,  and  friends  were  ready  to  help 
him;  they  bought  the  horse  and  instruments  back  for 
him.  To  this  time  belongs  his  first  acquaintance  with 
some  writers  of  unsettling  tendency,  Tom  Paine,  Vol- 
taire, and  Volney,  who  was  then  recognised  as  one  of 
the  dangerous  authors.  Cock-fights,  strange  feats  of 
strength,  or  of  usefulness  with  axe  or  hammer  or  scythe, 
and  a  passion  for  mimicry  continue.  In  1834  he  became 
a  candidate  again.  "  Can't  the  party  raise  any  better 
material  than  that?  "  asked  a  bystander  before  a  speech 
of  his;  after  it,  he  exclaimed  that  the  speaker  knew  more 
than  all  the  other  candidates  put  together.  This  time 
he  was  elected,  being  then  twenty-five,  and  thereafter  he 
was  returned  for  three  further  terms  of  two  years. 
Shortly  before  his  second  election  in  1836  the  State  capi- 
tal was  removed  to  Springfield,  in  his  own  county.  There 
in  1837  Lincoln  fixed  his  home.  He  had  long  been  read- 
ing law  in  his  curious,  spasmodically  concentrated  way, 
and  he  had  practised  a  little  as  a  "  pettifogger,"  that  is, 
an  unlicensed  practitioner  in  the  inferior  courts.  He 
had  now  obtained  his  license  and  was  very  shortly  taken 
into  partnership  by  an  old  friend  in  Springfield. 

2.    In  the  Illinois  Legislature. 

Here  his  youth  may  be  said  to  end.  Springfield  was 
a  different  place  from  New  Salem.  There  were  carriages 
in  it,  and  ladies  who  studied  poetry  and  the  fashions. 
There  were  families  from  Virginia  and  Kentucky  who 
were  conscious  of  ancestry,  while  graver,  possibly  more 
pushing,  people  from  the  North-eastern  States,  soon  to 
outnumber  them,  were  a  little  inclined  to  ridicule  what 
they  called  their  "  illusory  ascendency."  There  was  a 
brisk  competition  of  churches,  and  mutual  improvement 
societies  such  as  the  "  Young  Men's  Lyceum  "  had  a 
rival  claim  to  attention  with  races  and  cock-fights. 


70  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

•  And  it  was  an  altered  Abraham  Lincoln  that  came  to 
inhabit  Springfield.  Arriving  a  day  or  two  before  his 
first  law  partnership  was  settled  he  came  into  the  shop 
of  a  thriving  young  tradesman,  Mr.  Joshua  Speed,  to 
ask  about  the  price  of  the  cheapest  bedding  and  other 
necessary  articles.  The  sum  for  which  Lincoln,  who  had 
not  one  cent,  would  have  had  to  ask,  and  would  have 
been  readily  allowed,  credit,  was  only  seventeen  dollars. 
But  this  huge  prospect  of  debt  so  visibly  depressed  him 
that  Speed  instantly  proposed  an  arrangement  which 
involved  no  money  debt.  He  took  him  upstairs  and  in- 
stalled him — Western  domestic  arrangements  were  and 
are  still  simple — as  the  joint  occupant  of  his  own  large 
bed.  "  Well,  Speed,  I'm  moved,"  was  the  terse  acknowl- 
edgment. Speed  was  to  move  him  later  by  more  pre- 
cious charity.  We  are  concerned  for  the  moment  with 
what  moved  Speed.  "  I  looked  up  at  him,"  said  he, 
long  after,  "  and  I  thought  then,  as  I  think  now,  that 
I  never  saw  so  gloomy  and  melancholy  a  face  in  my 
life."  The  struggle  of  ambition  and  poverty  may  well 
have  been  telling  on  Lincoln;  but  besides  that  a  tragical 
love  story  (shortly  to  be  told)  had  left  a  deep  and  per- 
manent mark;  but  these  influences  worked,  we  may  sup- 
pose, upon  a  disposition  quite  as  prone  to  sadness  as  to 
mirth.  His  exceedingly  gregarious  habit,  drawing  him 
to  almost  any  assembly  of  his  own  sex,  continued  all  his 
life;  but  it  alternated  from  the  first  with  a  habit  of  soli- 
tude or  abstraction,  the  abstraction  of  a  man  who,  when 
he  does  wish  to  read,  will  read  intently  in  the  midst  of 
crowd  or  noise,  or  walking  along  the  street.  He  was 
what  might  unkindly  be  called  almost  a  professional 
humorist,  the  master  of  a  thousand  startling  stories,  de- 
lightful to  the  hearer,  but  possibly  tiresome  in  written 
reminiscences,  but  we  know  too  well  that  gifts  of  this 
kind  are  as  compatible  with  sadness  as  they  certainly  are 
with  deadly  seriousness. 

The  Legislature  of  Illinois  in  the  eight  years  from 
1834  to  1842,  in  which  Lincoln  belonged  to  it,  was, 
though  not  a  wise,  a  vigorous  body.  In  the  conditions 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        71 

which  then  existed  it  was  not  likely  to  have  been  cap- 
tured as  the  Legislatures  of  wilder  and  more  thinly- 
peopled  States  have  sometimes  been  by  a  disreputable 
element  in  the  community,  nor  to  have  subsided  into  the 
hands  of  the  dull  mechanical  class  of  professional  poli- 
ticians with  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  we  have  now  been 
led  to  associate  American  State  Government.  The  fact 
of  Lincoln's  own  election  suggests  that  dishonest  adven- 
turers might  easily  have  got  there,  but  equally  suggests 
that  a  very  different  type  of  men  prevailed.  "  The 
Legislature,"  we  are  told,  "  contained  the  youth  and 
blood  and  fire  of  the  frontier."  Among  the  Democrats 
in  the  Legislature  was  Stephen  Douglas,  who  was  to 
become  one  of  the  most  powerful  men  in  the  United 
States  while  Lincoln  was  still  unknown;  and  several  of 
Lincoln's  Whig  colleagues  were  afterwards  to  play  dis- 
tinguished or  honourable  parts  in  politics  or  war.  We 
need  not  linger  over  them,  but  what  we  know  of  those 
with  whom  he  had  any  special  intimacy  makes  it 
entirely  pleasant  to  associate  him  with  them.  After  a 
short  time  in  which,  like  any  sensible  young  member  of 
an  assembly,  he  watched  and  hardly  ever  spoke,  Lincoln 
soon  made  his  way  among  these  men,  and  in  1838  and 
1840  the  Whig  members — though,  being  in  a  minority, 
they  could  not  elect  him — gave  him  their  unanimous 
votes  for  the  Speakership  of  the  Assembly.  The  busi- 
ness which  engrossed  the  Legislature,  at  least  up  to 
1838,  was  the  development  of  the  natural  resources  of 
the  State.  These  were  great.  It  was  natural  that  rail- 
ways, canals  and  other  public  works  to  develop  them 
should  be  pushed  forward  at  the  public  cost.  Other  new 
countries  since,  with  less  excuse  because  with  greater 
warning  from  experience,  have  plunged  in  this  matter, 
and,  though  the  Governor  protested,  the  Illinois  Legis- 
lature, Whigs  and  Democrats,  Lincoln  and  every  one 
else,  plunged  gaily,  so  that,  during  the  collapse  which 
followed,  Illinois,  though,  like  Lincoln  himself,  it  paid 
its  debts  in  the  end,  was  driven  in  1840  to  suspend  inter- 
est payments  for  several  years. 


72  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Very  little  is  recorded  of  Lincoln's  legislative  doings. 
What  is  related  chiefly  exhibits  his  delight  in  the  game 
of  negotiation  and  combination  by  which  he  and  the 
other  members  for  his  county,  together  known  as  "  the 
Long  Nine,"  advanced  the  particular  projects  which 
pleased  their  constituents  or  struck  their  own  fancy. 
Thus  he  early  had  a  hand  in  the  removal  of  the  capital 
from  Vandalia  to  Springfield  in  his  own  county.  The 
map  of  Illinois  suggests  that  Springfield  was  a  better 
site  for  the  purpose  than  Vandalia  and  at  least  as  good 
as  Jacksonville  or  Peoria  or  any  of  its  other  competitors. 
Of  his  few  recorded  speeches  one  concerns  a  proposed 
inquiry  into  some  alleged  impropriety  in  the  allotment 
of  shares  in  the  State  Bank.  It  is  certainly  the  speech 
of  a  bold  man;  it  argues  with  remarkable  directness  that 
whereas  a  committee  of  prominent  citizens  which  had 
already  inquired  into  this  matter  consisted  of  men  of 
known  honesty,  the  proposed  committee  of  the  Legis- 
lators, whom  he  was  addressing,  would  consist  of  men 
who,  for  all  he  knew,  might  be  honest,  and,  for  all  he 
knew,  might  not. 

The  Federal  politics  of  this  time,  though  Lincoln 
played  an  active  local  part  in  the  campaigns  of  the  Whig 
party,  concern  us  little.  The  Whigs,  to  whom  he  did 
subordinate  service,  were,  as  has  been  said,  -an  unlucky 
party.  In  1840,  in  the  reaction  which  extreme  commer- 
cial depression  created  against  the  previously  omnipotent 
Democrats,  the  Whig  candidate  for  the  Presidency  was 
successful.  This  was  General  Harrison,  a  respected  sol- 
dier of  the  last  war,  who  was  glorified  as  a  sort  of 
Cincinnatus  and  elected  after  an  outburst  of  enthusiastic 
tomfoolery  such  as  never  before  or  since  rejoiced  the 
American  people.  But  President  Harrison  had  hardly 
been  in  office  a  month  when  he  died.  Some  say  he  was 
worried  to  death  by  office  seekers,  but  a  more  prosaic 
cause,  pneumonia,  can  also  be  alleged.  It  is  satisfactory 
that  this  good  man's  grandson  worthily  filled  his  office 
forty-eight  years  after,  but  his  immediate  successor  was 
of  course  the  Vice-President,  Tyler,  chosen  as  an  influen- 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        73 

tial  opponent  of  the  last  Democrat  Presidents,  but  not 
because  he  agreed  with  the  Whigs.  Cultivated  but 
narrow-minded,  highly  independent  and  wholly  perverse, 
he  satisfied  no  aspiration  of  the  Whigs  and  paved  the 
way  effectually  for  the  Democrat  who  succeeded  him. 

Throughout  these  years  Lincoln  was  of  course  work- 
ing at  law,  which  became,  with  the  development  of  the 
country,  a  more  arduous  and  a  more  learned  profession. 
Sessions  of  the  Legislature  did  not  last  long,  and  political 
canvasses  were  only  occasional.  If  Lincoln  was  active 
in  these  matters  he  was  in  many  other  directions,  too, 
a  keen  participator  in  the  keen  life  of  the  society  round 
him.  Nevertheless  politics  as  such,  and  apart  from  any 
large  purpose  to  be  achieved  through  them,  had  for 
many  years  a  special  fascination  for  him.  For  one 
thing  he  was  argumentative  in  the  best  sense,  with  a  pas- 
sion for  what  the  Greeks  sometimes  called  "  dialectic  " ; 
his  rare  capacity  for  solitary  thought,  the  most  marked 
and  the  greatest  of  his  powers,  went  absolutely  hand  in 
hand  with  the  desire  to  reduce  his  thoughts  to  a  form 
which  would  carry  logical  conviction  to  others.  Further, 
there  can  be  no  doubt — -and  such  a  combination  of 
tastes,  though  it  seems  to  be  uncommon,  is  quite  intel- 
ligible— that  the  somewhat  unholy  business  of  party 
management  was  at  first  attractive  to  him.  To  the  end 
he  showed  no  intuitive  comprehension  of  individual  men. 
His  sincere  friendly  intention,  the  unanswerable  force 
of  an  argument,  the  convincing  analogy  veiled  in  an 
unseemly  story,  must  take  their  chance  of  suiting  the  par- 
ticular taste  of  Senator  Sherman  or  General  McClellan; 
but  any  question  of  managing  men  in  the  mass — will  a 
given  candidate's  influence  with  this  section  of  people 
count  for  more  than  his  unpopularity  with  that  section? 
and  so  on — involved  an  element  of  subtle  and  long- 
sighted calculation  which  was  vastly  congenial  to  him. 
We  are  to  see  him  hereafter  applying  this  sort  of  science 
on  a  grand  scale  and  for  a  great  end.  His  early  disci- 
pline in  it  is  a  dull  subject,  interesting  only  where  it 
displays,  as  it  sometimes  does,  the  perfect  fairness  with 


74  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

which  this  ambitious  man  could  treat  his  own  claims  as 
against  those  of  a  colleague  and  competitor. 

In  forming  any  judgment  of  Lincoln's  career  it  must, 
further,  be  realised  that,  while  he  was  growing  up  as  a 
statesman,  the  prevailing  conception  of  popular  govern- 
ment was  all  the  time  becoming  more  unfavourable  to 
leadership  and  to  robust  individuality.  The  new  party 
machinery  adopted  by  the  Democrats  under  Jackson,  as 
the  proper  mode  of  securing  government  by  the  people, 
induced  a  deadly  uniformity  of  utterance;  breach  of  that 
uniformity  was  not  only  rash,  but  improper.  Once  in 
early  days  it  was  demanded  in  a  newspaper  that  "  all 
candidates  should  show  their  hands."  "  Agreed,"  writes 
Lincoln,  "  here's  mine  " ;  and  then  follows  a  young  man's 
avowal  of  advanced  opinions;  he  would  give  the  suffrage 
to  "  all  whites  who  pay  taxes  or  bear  arms,  by  no  means 
excluding  females."  Disraeli,  who  was  Lincoln's  con- 
temporary, throve  by  exuberances  quite  as  startling  as 
this,  nor  has  any  English  politician  found  it  damaging 
to  be  bold.  On  this  occasion  indeed  (in  1836)  Lincoln 
was  far  from  damaging  himself;  the  Whigs  had  not  till 
a  few  years  later  been  induced,  for  self-preservation,  to 
copy  the  Democratic  machine.  But  it  is  striking  that  the 
admiring  friend  who  reports  this  declaration,  "  too 
audacious  and  emphatic  for  the  statesmen  of  a  later 
day,"  must  carefully  explain  how  it  could  possibly  suit 
the  temper  of  a  time  which  in  a  few  years  passed  away. 
Very  soon  the  question  whether  a  proposal  or  even  a 
sentiment  was  timely  or  premature  came  to  bulk  too 
large  in  the  deliberations  of  Lincoln's  friends.  The 
reader  will  perhaps  wonder  later  whether  such  consid- 
erations did  not  bulk  too  largely  in  Lincoln's  own  mind. 
Was  there  in  his  statesmanship,  even  in  later  days  when 
he  had  great  work  to  do,  an  element  of  that  opportunism 
which,  if  not  actually  base,  is  at  least  cheap?  Or  did 
he  come  as  near  as  a  man  with  many  human  weaknesses 
could  come  to  the  wise  and  nobly  calculated  opportunism 
which  is  not  merely  the  most  beneficent  statesmanship, 
but  demands  a  heroic  self-mastery? 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        75 

The  main  interest  of  his  doings  in  Illinois  politics  and 
in  Congress  is  the  help  they  may  give  in  penetrating  his 
later  mind.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  certain  that  Lincoln 
trained  himself  to  be  a  great  student  of  the  fitting  oppor- 
tunity. He  evidently  paid  very  serious  attention  to  the 
counsels  of  friends  who  would  check  his  rasher  impulses. 
One  of  his  closest  associates  insists  that  his  impulsive 
judgment  was  bad,  and  he  probably  thought  so  himself. 
It  will  be  seen  later  that  the  most  momentous  utterance 
he  ever  made  was  kept  back  through  the  whole  space 
of  two  years  of  crisis  at  the  instance  of  timid  friends. 
It  required  not  less  courage  and  was  certainly  more 
effective  when  at  last  it  did  come  out.  The  same  great 
capacity  for  waiting  marks  any  steps  that  he  took  for 
his  own  advancement.  Indeed  it  was  a  happy  thing  for 
him  and  for  his  country  that  his  character  and  the  whole 
cast  of  his  ideas  and  sympathies  were  of  a  kind  to  which 
the  restraint  imposed  on  an  American  politician  was 
most  congenial  and  to  which  therefore  it  could  do  least 
harm.  He  was  to  prove  himself  a  patient  man  in  other 
ways  as  well  as  this.  On  many  things,  perhaps  on  most, 
the  thoughts  he  worked  out  in  his  own  mind  diverged 
very  widely  from  those  of  his  neighbours,  but  he  was 
not  in  the  least  anxious  either  to  conceal  or  to  obtrude 
them.  His  social  philosophy  as  he  expressed  it  to  his 
friends  in  these  days  was  one  which  contemplated  great 
future  reforms — abolition  of  slavery  and  a  strict  tem- 
perance policy  were  among  them.  But  he  looked  for 
them  with  a  sort  of  fatalistic  confidence  in  the  ultimate 
victory  of  reason,  and  saw  no  use  and  a  good  deal  of 
harm  in  premature  political  agitation  for  them.  "  All 
such  questions,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  must  find 
lodgment  with  the  most  enlightened  souls  who  stamp 
them  with  their  approval.  In  Gn^s  own  time  they  will 
be  organised  into  law  and  thus  \\oven  into  the  fabric  of 
our  institutions."  This  seems  a  little  cold-blooded,  but 
perhaps  we  can  already  begin  to  recognise  the  man  who, 
when  the  time  had  fully  come,  would  be  on  the  right 
side,  and  in  whom  the  evil  which  he  had  deeply 


76  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

but  restrainedly  hated  would  find  an  appallingly  wary 
foe. 

But  there  were  crucial  instances  which  test  sufficiently 
whether  this  wary  politician  was  a  true  man  or  not.  The 
soil  of  Illinois  was  free  soil  by  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
and  Congress  would  only  admit  it  to  the  Union  as  a 
free  State.  But  it  had  been  largely  peopled  from  the 
South.  There  had  been  much  agitation  against  this 
restriction;  prevailing  sentiment  to  a  late  date  strongly 
approved  of  slavery;  it  was  at  Alton  in  Illinois  that,  in 
1836,  Elijah  Lovejoy,  an  Abolitionist  publisher,  had 
been  martyred  by  the  mob  which  had  failed  to  intimidate 
him.  In  1837,  when  the  bold  agitation  of  the  Aboli- 
tionists was  exciting  much  disapproval,  the  Illinois 
Legislature  passed  resolutions  condemning  that  agitation 
and  declaring  in  soothing  tones  the  constitutional  pow- 
erlessness  of  Congress  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
Southern  States.  Now  Lincoln  himself — whether  for 
good  reasons  or  bad  must  be  considered  later — thor- 
oughly disapproved  of  the  actual  agitation  of  the  Aboli- 
tionists; and  the  resolutions  in  question,  but  for  one 
merely  theoretical  point  of  law  and  for  an  unctuous 
misuse  of  the  adjective  "  sacred,"  contained  nothing 
which  he  could  not  literally  have  accepted.  The  objec- 
tion  to  them  lay  in  the  motive  which  made  it  worth 
while  to  pass  them.  Lincoln  drew  up  and  placed  on  the 
records  of  the  House  a  protest  against  these  resolutions. 
He  defines  in  it  his  own  quite  conservative  opinions;  he 
deprecates  the  promulgation  of  Abolition  doctrines;  but 
he  does  so  because  it  "  tends  rather  to  increase  than 
abate  the  evils  "  of  slavery;  and  he  lays  down  "  that  the 
institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and 
bad  policy."  One  man  alone  could  he  induce  to  sign 
this  protest  with  him,  and  that  man  was  not  seeking 
re-election. 

By  1842  Lincoln  had  grown  sensibly  older,  and  a  little 
less  ready,  we  may  take  it,  to  provoke  unnecessary 
antagonism.  Probably  very  old  members  of  Free 
Churches  are  the  people  best  able  to  appreciate  the 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        77 

daring  of  the  following  utterance.  Speaking  on  Wash- 
ington's birthday  in  a  Presbyterian  church  to  a  tem- 
perance society  formed  among  the  rougher  people  of  the 
town  and  including  former  drunkards  who  desired  to 
reform  themselves,  he  broke  out  in  protest  against  the 
doctrine  that  respectable  persons  should  shun  the  com- 
pany of  people  tempted  to  intemperance.  "  If,"  he  said, 
"  they  believe  as  they  profess  that  Omnipotence  con- 
descended to  take  upon  Himself  the  form  of  sinful  man, 
and  as  such  die  an  ignominious  death,  surely  they  will 
not  refuse  submission  to  the  infinitely  lesser  condescen- 
sion, for  the  temporal  and  perhaps  eternal  salvation  of 
a  large,  erring,  and  unfortunate  class  of  their  fellow 
creatures!  Nor  is  the  condescension  very  great.  In  my 
judgment  such  of  us  as  have  never  fallen  victims  have 
been  spared  more  from  the  absence  of  appetite  than 
from  any  mental  or  moral  superiority  over  those  who 
have.  Indeed,  I  believe,  if  we  take  habitual  drunkards 
as  a  class,  that  their  heads  and  their  hearts  will  bear  an 
advantageous  comparison  with  those  of  any  other  class." 
It  proved,  at  a  later  day,  very  lucky  for  America  that 
the  virtuous  Lincoln,  who  did  not  drink  strong  drink — 
nor,  it  is  sad  to  say,  smoke,  nor,  which  is  all  to  the  good, 
chew — did  feel  like  that  about  drunkenness.  But  there 
was  great  and  loud  wrath.  "  It's  a  shame,"  said  one, 
"  that  he  should  be  permitted  to  abuse  us  so  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord."  It  is  certain  that  in  this  sort  of  way  he 
did  himself  a  good  deal  of  injury  as  an  aspiring  poli- 
tician. It  is  also  the  fact  that  he  continued  none  the 
less  persistently  in  a  missionary  work  conceived  in  a 
spirit  none  the  less  Christian  because  it  shocked  many 
pious  people. 

3.    Marriage. 

The  private  life  of  Lincoln  continued,  and  for  many 
years  increasingly,  to  be  equally  marked  by  indiscriminate 
sociability  and  brooding  loneliness.  Comfort  and  the 
various  influences  which  may  be  associated  with  the  old- 


78  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

fashioned  American  word  "  elegance "  seem  never  to 
enter  into  it.  What  is  more,  little  can  be  discerned  of 
positive  happiness  in  the  background  of  his  life,  as  the 
freakish  elasticity  of  his  youth  disappeared  and,  after  a 
certain  measure  of  marked  success,  the  further  objects 
of  his  ambition  though  not  dropped  became  unlikely  of 
attainment  and  seemed,  we  may  guess,  of  doubtful  value. 
All  along  he  was  being  moulded  for  endurance  rather 
than  for  enjoyment. 

Nor,  though  his  children  evidently  brought  him  hap- 
piness, does  what  we  know  of  his  domesticities  and 
dearest  affections  weaken  this  general  impression.  When 
he  married  he  had  gone  through  a  saddening  experience. 
He  started  on  manhood  with  a  sound  and  chivalrous  out- 
look on  women  in  general,  and  a  nervous  terror  of  actual 
women  when  he  met  them.  In  New  Salem  days  he 
absented  himself  from  meals  for  the  whole  time  that 
some  ladies  were  staying  at  his  boarding  house.  His 
clothes  and  his  lack  of  upbringing  must  have  weighed 
with  him,  besides  his  natural  disposition.  None  the  less, 
of  course  he  fell  in  love.  Miss  Ann  Rutledge,  the 
daughter  of  a  store  and  tavern  keeper  from  Kentucky 
with  whom  Lincoln  was  boarding  in  1833,  nas  been 
described  as  of  exquisite  beauty;  some  say  this  is  over- 
stated, but  speak  strongly  of  her  grace  and  charm.  A 
lady  who  knew  her  gives  these  curiously  collocated  par- 
ticulars :  "  Miss  Rutledge  had  auburn  hair,  blue  eyes, 
fair  complexion.  She  was  pretty,  slightly  slender,  but  in 
everything  a  good-hearted  young  woman.  She  was 
about  five  feet  two  inches  high,  and  weighed  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  a  hundred  and  twenty  pounds.  She  was 
beloved  by  all  who  knew  her.  She  died  as  it  were  of 
grief.  In  speaking  of  her  death  and  her  grave  Lincoln 
once  said  to  me,  '  My  heart  lies  buried  there.'  '  The 
poor  girl,  when  Lincoln  first  came  courting  to  her,  had 
passed  through  a  grievous  agitation.  She  had  been 
engaged  to  a  young  man,  who  suddenly  returned  to  his 
home  in  the  Eastern  States,  after  revealing  to  her,  with 
some  explanation  which  was  more  convincing  to  her  than 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        79 

to  her  friends,  that  he  had  been  passing  under  an 
assumed  name.  It  seems  that  his  absence  was  strangely 
prolonged,  that  for  a  long  time  she  did  not  hear  from 
him,  that  his  letters  when  they  did  come  puzzled  her, 
that  she  clung  to  him  long,  but  yielded  at  last  to  her 
friends,  who  urged  their  very  natural  suspicions  upon 
her.  It  is  further  suggested  that  there  was  some  good 
explanation  of  his  conduct  all  the  while,  and  that  she 
learnt  this  too  late  when  actually  engaged  to  Lincoln. 
However  that  may  be,  shortly  after  her  engagement  to 
Lincoln  she  fell  seriously  ill,  insisted,  as  she  lay  ill,  on 
a  long  interview  with  Lincoln  alone,  and  a  day  or  two 
later  died.  This  was  in  1835,  when  he  was  twenty-six. 
It  is  perhaps  right  to  say  that  one  biographer  throws 
doubt  on  the  significance  of  this  story  in  Lincoln's  life. 
The  details  as  to  Ann  Rutledge's  earlier  lover  are  vague 
and  uncertain.  The  main  facts  of  Lincoln's  first  engage- 
ment and  almost  immediate  loss  of  his  betrothed  are 
quite  certain;  the  blow  would  have  been  staggering 
enough  to  any  ordinary  young  lover  and  we  know  noth- 
ing of  Lincoln  which  would  discredit  Mr.  Herndon's 
judgment  that  its  effect  on  him  was  both  acute  and  per- 
manent. There  can  be  no  real  doubt  that  his  spells  of 
melancholy  were  ever  afterwards  more  intense,  and 
politer  biographers  should  not  have  suppressed  the  testi- 
mony that  for  a  time  that  melancholy  seemed  to  his 
friends  to  verge  upon  insanity.  He  always  found  good 
friends,  and,  as  was  to  happen  again  later,  one  of  them, 
Mr.  Bowline  Greene,  carried  him  off  to  his  own  secluded 
home  and  watched  him  carefully.  He  said  "  the  thought 
that  the  snows  and  rains  fell  upon  her  grave  filled  him 
with  indescribable  grief."  Two  years  later  he  told  a 
fellow-legislator  that  "  although  he  seemed  to  others  to 
enjoy  life  rapturously,  yet  when  alone  he  was  so  over- 
come by  mental  depression,  he  never  dared  to  carry  a 
pocket-knife."  Later  still  Greene,  who  had  helped  him, 
died,  and  Lincoln  was  to  speak  over  his  grave.  For 
once  in  his  life  he  broke  down  entirely;  "the  tears  ran 
down  his  yellow  and  shrivelled  cheeks.  .  .  .  After  re- 


8o  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

peated  efforts  he  found  it  impossible  to  speak  and  strode 
away  sobbing." 

The  man  whom  a  grief  of  this  kind  has  affected  not 
only  intensely,  but  morbidly,  is  almost  sure,  before  its 
influence  has  faded,  to  make  love  again,  and  is  very 
likely  to  do  so  foolishly.  Miss  Mary  Owens  was  slightly 
older  than  Lincoln.  She  was  a  handsome  woman;  com- 
manding, but  comfortable.  In  the  tales  of  Lincoln's  love 
stories,  much  else  is  doubtfully  related,  but  the  lady's 
weight  is  in  each  case  stated  with  assurance,  and  when 
she  visited  her  sister  in  New  Salem  in  1836  Mary  Owens 
weighed  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  There  is  noth- 
ing sad  in  her  story;  she  was  before  long  happily  mar- 
ried— not  to  Lincoln — and  she  long  outlived  him.  But 
Lincoln,  who  had  seen  her  on  a  previous  visit  and 
partly  remembered  her,  had  been  asked,  perhaps  in  jest, 
by  her  sister  to  marry  her  if  she  returned,  and  had 
rashly  announced  half  in  jest  that  he  would.  Her  sister 
promptly  fetched  her,  and  he  lingered  for  some  time  in 
a  half-engaged  condition,  writing  her  reasonable,  con- 
scientious, feeble  letters,  in  which  he  put  before  her  dis- 
passionately the  question  whether  she  could  patiently 
bear  "  to  see  without  sharing  ...  a  lot  of  flourishing 
about  in  carriages,  ...  to  be  poor  without  the  means 
of  hiding  your  poverty,"  and  assuring  her  that  "  I 
should  be  much  happier  with  you  than  the  way  I  am, 
provided  I  saw  no  signs  of  discontent  in  you."  Whether 
he  rather  wished  to  marry  her  but  felt  bound  to  hold 
her  free,  or  distinctly  wished  not  to  marry  her  but  felt 
bound  not  to  hold  himself  free,  he  probably  was  never 
sure.  The  lady  very  wisely  decided  that  he  could  not 
make  her  happy,  and  returned  to  Kentucky.  She  said 
he  was  deficient  in  the  little  courteous  attentions  which 
a  woman's  happiness  requires  of  her  husband.  She  gave 
instances  long  after  to  prove  her  point;  but  she  always 
spoke  of  him  with  friendship  and  respect  as  "  a  man 
with  a  heart  full  of  human  kindness  and  a  head  full  of 
common  sense." 

Rather  unluckily,  Lincoln,  upon  his  rejection  or  re- 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        81 

lease,  relieved  his  feelings  in  a  letter  about  Miss  Owens 
to  one  of  the  somewhat  older  married  ladies  who  were 
kind  to  him,  the  wife  of  one  of  his  colleagues.  She 
ought  to  have  burnt  his  letter,  but  she  preserved  it  to 
kindle  mild  gossip  after  his  death.  It  is  a  burlesque 
account  of  his  whole  adventure,  describing,  with  touches 
of  very  bad  taste,  his  disillusionment  with  the  now 
maturer  charms  of  Miss  Owens  when  her  sister  brought 
her  back  to  New  Salem,  and  making  comedy  of  his  own 
honest  bewilderment  and  his  mingled  relief  and  mortifi- 
cation when  she  at  last  refused  him.  We  may  take  it 
as  evidence  of  the  natural  want  of  perception  and  right 
instinctive  judgment  in  minor  matters  which  some  who 
knew  and  loved  him  attribute  to  him.  But,  besides  that, 
the  man  who  found  relief  in  this  ill-conceived  exercise 
of  humour  was  one  in  whom  the  prospect  of  marriage 
caused  some  strange  and  pitiful  perturbation  of  mind. 

This  was  in  1838,  and  a  year  later  Mary  Todd  came 
from  Kentucky  to  stay  at  Springfield  with  her  brother- 
in-law  Ninian  Edwards,  a  legislator  of  Illinois  and  a 
close  ally  of  Lincoln's.  She  was  aged  twenty-one,  and 
her  weight  was  one  hundred  and  thirty  pounds.  She  was 
well  edacated,  and  had  family  connections  which  were 
highly  esteemed.  She  was  pleasant  in  company,  but 
somewhat  imperious,  and  she  was  a  vivacious  talker. 
When  among  the  young  men  who  now  became  attentive 
in  calling  on  the  Edwards's  Lincoln  came  and  sat  awk- 
wardly gazing  on  Miss  Todd,  Mrs.  Edwards  appears  to 
have  remarked  that  the  two  were  not  suited  to  each 
other.  But  an  engagement  took  place  all  the  same. 
As  to  the  details  of  what  followed,  whether  he  or  she 
was  the  first  to  have  doubts,  and  whether,  as  some  say, 
the  great  Stephen  Douglas  appeared  on  the  scene  as  a 
rival  and  withdrew  rather  generously  but  too  late,  is 
uncertain.  But  Lincoln  composed  a  letter  to  break  off 
his  engagement.  He  showed  it  to  Joshua  Speed,  who 
told  him  that  if  he  had  the  courage  of  a  man  he  would 
not  write  to  her,  but  see  her  and  speak.  He  did  so. 
She  cried.  He  kissed  and  tried  to  comfort  her.  After 


82  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

this  Speed  had  to  point  out  to  him  that  he  had  really 
renewed  his  engagement.  Again  there  may  be  some  un- 
certainty whether  on  January  i,  1841,  the  bridal  party 
had  actually  assembled  and  the  bridegroom  after  long 
search  was  found  by  his  friends  wandering  about  in  a 
state  which  made  them  watch  day  and  night  and  keep 
knives  from  him.  But  it  is  quite  certain  from  his  letters 
that  in  some  such  way  on  "  the  fatal  1st  of  January, 
1841,"  he  broke  down  terribly.  Some  weeks  later  he 
wrote  to  his  partner :  "  Whether  I  shall  ever  be  better 
I  cannot  tell ;  I  awfully  forebode  I  shall  not.  To  remain 
as  I  am  is  impossible.  I  must  die  or  be  better,  as  it 
appears  to  me."  After  a  while  Speed  was  able  to 
remove  him  to  his  own  parents'  home  in  Kentucky, 
where  he  and  his  mother  nursed  him  back  to  mental 
life. 

Then  in  the  course  of  1841  Speed  himself  began  to 
contemplate  marriage,  and  Speed  himself  had  painful 
searchings  of  heart,  and  Lincoln's  turn  came  to  show  a 
sureness  of  perception  in  his  friend's  case  that  he  wholly 
lacked  in  his  own.  "  I  know,"  he  writes,  "  what  the 
painful  point  with  you  is  ...  it  is  an  apprehension  that 
you  do  not  love  her  as  you  should.  What  nonsense ! 
How  came  you  to  court  her?  But  you  say  you  reasoned 
yourself  into  it.  What  do  you  mean  by  that?  Was  it 
not  that  you  found  yourself  unable  to  reason  yourself 
out  of  it?  Did  you  not  think,  and  partly  form  the  pur- 
pose, of  courting  her  the  first  time  you  ever  saw  or  heard 
of  her?  What  had  reason  to  do  with  it  at  that  early 
stage?"  A  little  later  the  lady  of  Speed's  love  falls 
ill.  Lincoln  writes :  "  I  hope  and  believe  that  your  pres- 
ent anxiety  about  her  health  and  her  life  must  and  will 
for  ever  banish  those  horrid  doubts  which  I  know  you 
sometimes  felt  as  to  the  truth  of  your  affection  for  her. 
.  .  .  Perhaps  this  point  is  no  longer  a  question  with 
you,  and  my  pertinacious  dwelling  upon  it  is  a  rude  intru- 
sion upon  your  feelings.  If  so,  you  must  pardon  me. 
You  know  the  hell  I  have  suffered  upon  that  point,  and 
how  tender  I  am  upon  it."  When  he  writes  thus  it  is 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        83 

no  surprise  to  hear  from  him  that  he  has  lost  his 
hypochondria,  but  it  may  be  that  the  keen  recollection  of 
it  gives  him  excessive  anxieties  for  Speed.  On  the  eve 
of  the  wedding  he  writes :  "  You  will  always  hereafter 
be  on  ground  that  I  have  never  occupied,  and  conse- 
quently, if  advice  were  needed,  I  might  advise  wrong. 
I  do  fondly  hope,  however,  that  you  will  never  need 
comfort  from  abroad.  I  incline  to  think  it  probable  that 
your  nerves  will  occasionally  fail  you  for  a  while;  but 
once  you  get  them  firmly  graded  now,  that  trouble  is 
over  for  ever.  If  you  went  through  the  ceremony 
calmly  or  even  with  sufficient  composure  not  to  excite 
alarm  in  any  present,  you  are  safe  beyond  question,  and 
in  two  or  three  months,  to  say  the  most,  will  be  the 
happiest  of  men."  Soon  he  is  reassured  and  can  "  feel 
somewhat  jealous  of  both  of  you  now.  You  will  be  so 
exclusively  concerned  with  one  another  that  I  shall  be 
forgotten  entirely.  I  shall  feel  very  lonesome  without 
you."  And  a  little  later :  "  It  cannot  be  told  how  it 
thrills  me  with  joy  to  hear  you  say  you  are  far  happier 
than  you  ever  expected  to  be.  I  know  you  too  well  to 
suppose  your  expectations  were  not  at  least  sometimes 
extravagant,  and  if  the  reality  exceeds  them  all,  I  say, 
'  Enough,  dear  Lord.' '  And  here  follows  what  might 
perhaps  have  been  foreseen :  "  Your  last  letter  gave  me 
more  pleasure  than  the  total  sum  of  all  that  I  have  re- 
ceived since  the  fatal  ist  of  January,  1841.  Since  then 
it  seems  to  me  I  should  have  been  entirely  happy  but 
for  the  never  absent  idea  that  there  is  still  one  unhappy 
whom  I  have  contributed  to  make  so.  That  kills  my 
soul.  I  cannot  but  reproach  myself  for  even  wishing  to 
be  happy  while  she  is  otherwise."  Very  significantly  he 
has  inquired  of  friends  how  that  one  enjoyed  a  trip  on 
the  new  railway  cars  to  Jacksonville,  and — not  being 
like  Falkland  in  "  The  Rivals  " — praises  God  that  she 
has  enjoyed  it  exceedingly. 

This  was  in  the  spring  of  1842.  Some  three  months 
later  he  writes  again  to  Speed:  "I  must  gain  confidence 
in  my  own  ability  to  keep  my  resolves  when  they  are 


84  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

made.  In  that  ability  I  once  prided  myself  as  the  only 
chief  gem  of  my  character.  That  gem  I  lost  how  and 
where  you  know  too  well.  I  have  not  regained  it,  and 
until  I  do  I  cannot  trust  myself  in  any  matter  of  much 
importance.  I  believe  now  that,  had  you  understood 
my  case  at  the  time  as  well  as  I  understood  yours  after- 
wards, by  the  aid  you  would  have  given  me  I  should 
have  sailed  through  clear.  ...  I  always  was  super- 
stitious. I  believe  God  made  me  one  of  the  instruments 
of  bringing  Fanny  and  you  together,  which  union  I  have 
no  doubt  He  had  fore-ordained.  Whatever  He  designs 
for  me  He  will  do.  '  Stand  still  and  see  the  salvation 
of  the  Lord,'  is  my  text  just  now.  If,  as  you  say,  you 
have  told  Fanny  all,  I  should  have  no  objection  to  her 
seeing  this  letter.  I  do  not  think  I  can  come  to  Ken- 
tucky this  season.  I  am  so  poor  and  make  so  little  head- 
way in  the  world  that  I  drop  back  in  a  month  of  idle- 
ness as  much  as  I  gain  in  a  year's  sowing."  At  last  in 
the  autumn  of  that  year  Lincoln  addresses  to  Speed  a 
question  at  once  so  shrewd  and  so  daringly  intimate  as 
perhaps  no  other  man  ever  asked  of  his  friend.  "The 
immense  sufferings  you  endured  from  the  first  days  of 
September  till  the  middle  of  February"  (the  date  of 
Speed's  wedding)  "  you  never  tried  to  conceal  from  me, 
and  I  well  understood.  You  have  now  been  the  hus- 
band of  a  lovely  woman  nearly  eight  months.  That  you 
are  happier  now  than  the  day  you  married  her  I  well 
know.  .  .  .  But  I  want  to  ask  a  close  question !  *  Are 
you  in  feeling  as  well  as  in  judgment  glad  you  are  mar- 
ried as  you  are  ? '  From  anybody  but  me  this  would  be 
an  impudent  question,  not  to  be  tolerated,  but  I  know 
you  will  pardon  it  in  me.  Please  answer  it  quickly,  as 
I  am  impatient  to  know." 

Speed  remained  in  Kentucky;  Lincoln  was  too  poor 
for  visits  of  pleasure;  and  Speed  was  not  a  man  who 
cared  for  political  life;  but  the  memorials,  from  which 
the  above  quotations  have  been  taken,  of  Lincoln's  last- 
ing friendship  with  Speed  and  his  kind  mother,  who 
gave  Lincoln  a  treasured  Bible,  and  his  kind  young  wife, 


85 

who  made  her  husband's  friend  her  own,  and  whose 
violet,  dropped  into  her  husband's  letter  to  him  just  as 
he  was  sealing  it,  was  among  the  few  flowers  that 
Lincoln  ever  appreciated,  throw  the  clearest  light  that 
we  can  anywhere  obtain  on  the  inner  mind  of  Lincoln. 

As  may  have  been  foreseen,  Mary  Todd  and  he  had 
met  again  on  a  friendly  footing.  A  managing  lady  is 
credited  with  having  brought  about  a  meeting  between 
them,  but  evidently  she  did  not  do  it  till  Lincoln  was 
at  least  getting  desirous  to  be  managed.  He  was  much 
absorbed  at  this  time  in  law  business,  to  which  since  his 
breakdown  he  had  applied  himself  more  seriously.  It 
was  at  this  period  too  that  his  notable  address  on  tem- 
perance was  given.  Soon  after  his  meetings  with  Miss 
Todd  began  again  he  involved  himself  in  a  complica- 
tion of  a  different  kind.  He  had  written,  partly,  it 
seems,  for  the  young  lady's  amusement,  some  innocent 
if  uninteresting  political  skits  relating  to  some  question 
about  taxes.  This  brought  on  him  an  unexpected  chal- 
lenge from  a  fiery  but  diminutive  revenue  official,  one 
Colonel  Shields,  a  prominent  Democratic  politician. 
Lincoln  availed  himself  of  the  right  of  the  challenged 
to  impose  ridiculous  conditions  of  combat,  partly  no 
doubt  in  fun,  but  with  the  sensible  object  also  of  making 
sure  that  he  could  disarm  his  antagonist  with  no  risk 
of  harm  to  the  little  man.  The  tangled  controversy 
which  ensued  as  to  how  and  by  whose  fault  the  duel 
eventually  fell  through  has  nothing  in  it  now,  but  the 
whole  undignified  business  seems  to  have  given  Lincoln 
lasting  chagrin,  and  worried  him  greatly  at  a  time  when 
it  would  have  been  well  that  he  should  be  cheerful. 
At  last  on  November  4,  1842,  when  Lincoln  was  nearly 
thirty-three,  he  was  safely  married.  The  wedding,  held, 
according  to  the  prevailing  custom,  in  a  private  house, 
was  an  important  function,  for  it  was  the  first  Episco- 
palian wedding  that  good  society  in  Springfield  had  wit- 
nessed. Malicious  fortune  brought  in  a  ludicrous  inci- 
dent at  the  last  moment,  for  when  in  the  lawyerlike 
verbiage  of  the  then  American  Prayer-Book  the  bride- 


86  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

groom  said,  "  With  this  ring  I  thee  endow  with  all  my 
goods,  chattels,  lands  and  tenements,"  old  Judge  Brown 
of  the  Illinois  Supreme  Court,  who  had  never  heard  the 
like,  impatiently  broke  in,  "  God  Almighty,  Lincoln ! 
The  statute  fixes  all  that." 

There  is  more  than  the  conventional  reason  for 
apology  for  pressing  the  subject  a  little  further.  Noth- 
ing very  illuminating  can  be  said  as  to  the  course  of 
Lincoln's  married  life,  but  much  has  already  been  made 
public  about  it  which,  though  it  cannot  be  taken  as  reach- 
ing to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  is  not  properly  to  be  dis- 
missed as  mere  gossip.  Mrs.  Lincoln,  it  is  clear,  had  a 
high  temper — the  fact  that,  poor  woman !  after  her  hus- 
band had  been  murdered  by  her  side,  she  developed 
clear  symptoms  of  insanity,  may  or  may  not,  for  all  we 
are  entitled  to  know,  be  relevant  in  this  regard.  She 
was  much  younger  than  her  husband,  and  had  gone 
through  a  cruel  experience  for  him.  Moreover,  she  had 
proper  ambitions  and  was  accustomed  to  proper  conven- 
tional refinements;  so  her  husband's  exterior  roughness 
tried  her  sorely,  not  the  less  we  may  be  sure  because  of 
her  real  pride  in  him.  Wife  and  tailor  combined  could 
not,  with  any  amount  of  money,  have  dressed  him  well. 
Once,  though  they  kept  a  servant  then,  Lincoln  thought 
it  friendly  to  open  the  door  himself  in  his  shirt  sleeves 
when  two  most  elegant  ladies  came  to  call.  On  such 
occasions,  and  doubtless  on  other  occasions  of  less 
provocation,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  high  temper  was  let  loose. 
It  seems  pretty  certain,  too,  that  he  met  her  with  mere 
forbearance,  sad  patience,  and  avoidance  of  conflict. 
His  fellow  lawyers  came  to  notice  that  he  stayed  away 
from  home  on  circuit  when  all  the  rest  of  them  could 
go  home  for  a  day  or  two.  Fifteen  years  after  his 
wedding  he  himself  confessed  to  his  trouble,  not  dis- 
loyally, but  in  a  rather  moving  remonstrance  with  some 
one  who  had  felt  intolerably  provoked  by  Mrs.  Lincoln. 
There  are  slight  indications  that  occasions  of  difficulty 
and  pain  to  Lincoln  happened  up  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  slight  indications  that  com- 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        87 

mon  love  for  their  children  helped  to  make  the  two 
happier,  and  there  are  no  indications  at  all  of  any  ap- 
proach to  a  serious  quarrel.  All  that  is  told  us  may 
be  perfectly  true  and  not  by  any  means  have  justified 
the  pity  that  some  of  Lincoln's  friends  were  ready  to 
feel  for  him.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  suspecting  that 
Lincoln's  wife  did  not  duly  like  his  partner  and  biog- 
rapher, Mr.  Herndon,  who  felt  it  his  duty  to  record 
so  many  painful  facts  and  his  own  possibly  too  painful 
impression  from  them.  On  the  other  side,  Mr.  Herndon 
makes  it  clear  that  in  some  respects  Mrs.  Lincoln  was 
an  admirable  wife  for  her  husband.  She  faced  the  diffi- 
culties of  their  poverty  with  spirit  and  resolution.  Testi- 
mony from  other  sources  to  her  graceful  hospitality 
abounds.  More  than  this,  from  the  very  first  she 
believed  in  his  powers.  It  seems  she  had  the  discern- 
ment to  know,  when  few  others  can  have  done  so,  how 
far  greater  he  was  than  his  rival  Douglas.  It  was 
Herndon's  belief,  in  days  when  he  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
were  the  two  persons  who  saw  most  of  him,  that  she 
sustained  his  just  ambition,  and  that  at  the  most  critical 
moment  of  his  personal  career  she  had  the  courage  to 
make  him  refuse  an  attractive  appointment  which  must 
have  ruined  it.  The  worst  that  we  are  told  with  any 
certainty  amounts  to  this,  that  like  the  very  happily  mar- 
ried writer  of  "  Virginibus  Puerisque,"  Lincoln  discov- 
ered that  marriage  is  "  a  field  of  battle  and  not  a  bed 
of  roses  " — a  battle  in  which  we  are  forced  to  suspect 
that  he  did  not  play  his  full  part. 

We  should  perhaps  be  right  in  associating  his  curious 
record,  of  right  and  high  regard  for  women  and  ineffi- 
ciency where  a  particular  woman's  happiness  depended 
on  him,  with  the  belief  in  Woman  Suffrage,  which  he 
early  adopted  and  probably  retained.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
this  part  of  his  story  points  to  something  which  runs 
through  his  whole  character,  something  which  perhaps 
may  be  expressed  by  saying  that  the  natural  bias  of  his 
qualities  was  towards  the  negative  side.  We  hear,  no 
doubt,  of  occasions  when  his  vigour  was  instant  and  ter- 


88  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rible — like  that  of  Hamlet  on  the  ship  for  England;  but 
these  were  occasions  when  the  right  or  the  necessity  of 
the  case  was  obvious.  We  have  seen  him  also  firm  and 
absolutely  independent  where  his  conviction  had  already 
been  thought  out.  Where  there  was  room  for  further 
reflection,  for  patiently  waiting  on  events,  or  for  taking 
counsel  of  wise  friends,  manly  decision  had  not  come 
easily  to  him.  He  had  let  a  third  person  almost  engage 
him  to  Miss  Owens.  Once  in  this  relation  to  her,  he 
had  let  it  be  the  woman's  part  and  not  the  man's  to 
have  decision  enough  for  the  two.  Speed  had  to  tell 
him  that  he  must  face  Miss  Todd  and  speak  to  her,  and 
Speed  again  had  to  make  clear  to  him  what  the  effect  of 
his  speaking  had  been.  In  time  he  decided  what  he 
thought  his  own  feelings  were,  but  it  was  by  inference 
from  the  feelings  of  Speed.  Lastly,  it  seems,  the  trou- 
bles of  his  married  life  were  met  by  mere  patience  and 
avoidance.  All  this,  of  course,  concerned  a  side  of  life's 
affairs  in  regard  to  which  his  mind  had  suffered  painful 
shocks;  but  it  shows  the  direction  of  his  possible  weak- 
ness and  his  possible  strength  in  other  things.  It  falls 
in  with  a  trait  which  he  himself  noted  in  one  of  the 
letters  to  Speed:  "I  have  no  doubt,"  he  writes,  "it  is 
the  peculiar  misfortune  of  both  you  and  me  to  dream 
dreams  of  Elysium  far  exceeding  all  that  anything  earthly 
can  realise."  All  such  men  have  to  go  through  deep 
waters;  but  they  do  not  necessarily  miss  either  success 
or  happiness  in  the  end.  Lincoln's  life  may  be  said  to 
have  tested  him  by  the  test  which  Mr.  Kipling  states 
in  his  lines  about  Washington: — 

"  If  you  can  dream — and  not  make  dreams  your  master ; 
If  you  can  think — and  not  make  thoughts  your  aim." 

He  was  to  prove  that  he  could  do  this;  it  is  for  the  fol- 
lowing pages  to  show  in  how  high  a  degree.  Meanwhile 
one  thing  should  already  be  clear  about  him.  No  shrewd 
judge  of  men  could  read  his  letters  to  Speed  with  care 
and  not  feel  that,  whatever  mistakes  this  man  might  com- 


LINCOLN'S  EARLY  CAREER        89 

mit,  fundamentally  he  was  worthy  of  entire  trust.  That, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  what,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  Speed 
and  all  the  men  who  knew  him  and  an  ever  widening 
circle  of  men  who  had  to  judge  by  more  casual  impres- 
sions did  feel  about  Lincoln.  Whatever  was  question- 
able in  his  private  or  public  acts,  his  own  explanation,  if 
he  happened  to  give  one,  would  be  taken  by  them  as 
the  full  and  naked  truth,  and,  if  there  was  no  known 
explanation,  it  remained  to  them  an  irrebuttable  pre- 
sumption that  his  main  intention  was  right. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  IN  RETIREMENT 

I.    The  Mexican  War  and  Lincoln's  Work  in  Congress. 

LINCOLN  had  ceased  before  his  marriage  to  sit  in  the 
Illinois  Legislature.  He  had  won  sufficient  standing  for 
his  ambition  to  aim  higher;  a  former  law  partner  of 
his  was  now  in  Congress,  and  he  wished  to  follow.  But 
he  had  to  submit  to  a  few  years'  delay  of  which  the 
story  is  curious  and  honourable.  His  rivals  for  the 
representation  of  his  own  constituency  were  two  fellow 
Whigs,  Baker  and  Hardin,  both  of  whom  afterwards 
bore  distinguished  parts  in  the  Mexican  war  and  with 
both  of  whom  he  was  friendly.  Somewhat  to  his  dis- 
gust at  a  party  gathering  in  his  own  county  in  1843, 
Baker  was  preferred  to  him.  A  letter  of  his  gives  a 
shrewd  account  of  the  manoeuvres  among  members  of 
various  Churches  which  brought  this  about;  it  is  curi- 
ously careful  not  to  overstate  the  effect  of  these  influ- 
ences and  characteristically  denies  that  Baker  had  part 
in  them.  To  make  the  thing  harder,  he  was  sent  from 
this  meeting  to  a  convention,  for  the  whole  constituency, 
with  which  the  nomination  lay,  and  his  duty,  of  course, 
was  to  work  for  Baker.  Here  it  became  obvious  that 
Hardin  would  be  chosen;  nothing  could  be  done  for 
Baker  at  that  time,  but  Lincoln,  being  against  his  will 
there  in  Baker's  interests,  took  an  opportunity  in  the 
bargaining  that  took  place  to  advance  Baker's  claim,  to 
the  detriment  of  his  own,  to  be  Hardin's  successor  two 
years  later. 

By  some  perverse  accident  notes  about  details  of 
party  management  fill  a  disproportionate  space  among 
those  letters  of  Lincoln's  which  have  been  preserved, 
but  these  reveal  that,  with  all  his  business-like  attention 

90  < 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT     91 

to  the  affairs  of  his  very  proper  ambition,  he  was  able 
throughout  to  illuminate  dull  matters  of  this  order  with 
action  of  singular  disinterestedness.  After  being  a  sec- 
ond time  postponed,  no  doubt  to  the  advantage  of  his 
law  business,  he  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives at  Washington  for  two  years  in  the  spring  of 
1847.  Two  short  sessions  can  hardly  suffice  for  mas- 
tering the  very  complicated  business  of  that  body.  He 
made  hardly  any  mark.  He  probably  learned  much  and 
was  able-  to  study  at  leisure  the  characters  of  his  brother 
politicians.  He  earned  the  valuable  esteem  of  some,  and 
seems  to  have  passed  as  a  very  pleasant,  honest,  plain 
specimen  of  the  rough  West.  Like  others  of  the  younger 
Congressmen,  he  had  the  privilege  of  breakfasting  with 
Webster.  His  brief  career  in  the  House  seems  to  have 
disappointed  him,  and  it  certainly  dissatisfied  his  con- 
stituents. The  part  that  he  played  may  impress  us  more 
favourably  than  it  did  them,  but,  slight  as  it  was,  it 
requires  a  historical  explanation. 

Mexico  had  detached  itself  from  Spain  in  1826,  and 
in  1833  the  province  of  Texas  detached  itself  from 
Mexico.  Texas  was  largely  peopled  by  immigrants  from 
the  States,  and  these  had  grievances.  One  of  them  was 
that  Mexico  abolished  slavery,  but  there  was  real  mis- 
government  as  well,  and,  among  other  cruel  incidents  of 
the  rebellion  which  followed,  the  massacre  of  rebels  at 
the  Alamo  stamped  itself  on  American  memory.  The 
Republic  of  Texas  began  to  seek  annexation  to  the 
United  States  in  1839,  ^ut  there  was  opposition  in  the 
States  and  there  were  difficulties  with  Mexico  and  other 
Governments.  At  last  in  1845,  at  the  very  close  of  his 
term  of  office,  President  Tyler  got  the  annexation  pushed 
through  in  defiance  of  the  Whigs  who  made  him  Presi- 
dent. Mexico  broke  off  diplomatic  relations,  but  peace 
could  no  doubt  have  been  preserved  if  peace  had  been 
any  object  with  the  new  President  Polk  or  with  the 
Southern  leaders  whose  views  he  represented.  They  had 
set  their  eyes  upon  a  further  acquisition,  larger  even  than 
Texas — California,  and  the  whole  of  the  territories,  still 


92  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

belonging  to  Mexico,  to  the  east  of  it.  It  is  not  con- 
tested, and  would  not  have  been  contested  then,  that  the 
motive  of  their  policy  was  the  Southern  desire  to  win 
further  soil  for  cultivation  by  slaves.  But  there  was  no 
great  difficulty  in  gaining  some  popularity  for  their 
designs  in  the  North.  Talk  about  "  our  manifest  des- 
tiny "  to  reach  the  Pacific  may  have  been  justly  described 
by  Parson  Wilbur  as  "  half  on  it  ign'ance  and  t'other 
half  rum,"  but  it  is  easy  to  see  how  readily  it  might  be 
taken  up,  and  indeed  many  Northerners  at  that  moment 
had  a  fancy  of  their  own  for  expansion  in  the  North- 
West  and  were  not  over-well  pleased  with  Polk  when, 
in  1846,  he  set  the  final  seal  upon  the  settlement  with 
Great  Britain  of  the  Oregon  frontier. 

When  he  did  this  Polk  had  already  brought  about 
his  own  war.  The  judgment  on  that  war  expressed 
at  the  time  in  the  first  "  Biglow  Papers  "  has  seldom 
been  questioned  since,  and  there  seldom  can  have  been 
a  war  so  sternly  condemned  by  soldiers — Grant  amongst 
others — who  fought  in  it  gallantly.  The  facts  seem  to 
have  been  just  as  Lincoln  afterwards  recited  them  in 
Congress.  The  Rio  Grande,  which  looks  a  reasonable 
frontier  on  a  map,  was  claimed  by  the  United  States 
as  the  frontier  of  Texas.  The  territory  occupied  by 
the  American  settlers  of  Texas  reached  admittedly  up 
to  and  beyond  the  River  Nueces,  east  of  the  Rio 
Grande.  But  in  a  sparsely  settled  country,  where  water 
is  not  abundant,  the  actual  border  line,  if  there  be  any 
clear  line,  between  settlement  from  one  side  and  settle- 
ment from  the  other  will  not  for  the  convenience  of 
treaty-makers  run  along  a  river,  but  rather  for  the  con- 
venience of  the  settlers  along  the  water-parting  between 
two  rivers.  So  Mexico  claimed  both  banks  of  the  Rio 
Grande  and  Spanish  settlers  inhabited  both  sides.  Polk 
ordered  General  Zachary  Taylor,  who  was  allowed  no 
discretion  in  the  matter,  to  march  troops  right  up  to  the 
Rio  Grande  and  occupy  a  position  commanding  the 
encampment  of  the  Mexican  soldiers  there.  The  Mexi- 
can commander,  thus  threatened,  attacked.  The  Mex- 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT     93 

leans  had  thus  begun  the  war.  Polk  could  thus  allege 
his  duty  to  prosecute  it.  When  the  whole  transaction 
was  afterwards  assailed  his  critics  might  be  tempted  to 
go,  or  represented  as  going,  upon  the  false  ground  that 
only  Congress  can  constitutionally  declare  war — that  is, 
of  course,  sanction  purely  offensive  operations.  Long, 
however,  before  the  dispute  could  come  to  a  head,  the 
brilliant  successes  of  General  Taylor  and  still  more  of 
General  Scott,  with  a  few  trained  troops  against  large 
undisciplined  numbers,  put  all  criticism  at  a  disadvan- 
tage. The  City  of  Mexico  was  occupied  by  Scott  in  Sep- 
tember, 1847,  and  peace,  with  the  cession  of  the  vast 
domain  that  had  been  coveted,  was  concluded  in  May, 
1848. 

War  having  begun,  the  line  of  the  Whig  opposition 
was  to  vote  supplies  and  protest  as  best  they  might 
against  the  language  endorsing  Folk's  policy  which,  in 
the  pettiest  spirit  of  political  manoeuvre,  was  sometimes 
incorporated  in  the  votes.  In  this  Lincoln  steadily  sup- 
ported them.  One  of  his  only  two  speeches  of  any 
length  in  Congress  was  made  on  the  occasion  of  a  vote 
of  this  kind  in  1848.  The  subject  was  by  that  time  so 
stale  that  his  speech  could  hardly  make  much  impres- 
sion, but  it  appears  to-day  an  extraordinarily  clear, 
strong,  upright  presentment  of  the  complex  and  unpopu- 
lar case  against  the  war.  His  other  long  speech  is  ele- 
vated above  buffoonery  by  a  brief,  cogent,  and  earnest 
passage  on  the  same  theme,  but  it  was  a  frank  piece  of 
clowning  on  a  licensed  occasion.  It  was  the  fashion  for 
the  House  when  its  own  dissolution  and  a  Presidential 
election  were  both  imminent  to  have  a  sort  of  rhetorical 
scrimmage  in  which  members  on  both  sides  spoke  for 
the  edification  of  their  own  constituencies  and  that  of 
Buncombe.  The  Whigs  were  now  happy  in  having 
"  diverted  the  war-thunder  against  the  Democrats  "  by 
running  for  the  Presidency  General  Taylor,  a  good  sol- 
dier who  did  not  know  whether  he  was  a  Whig  or  a 
Democrat,  but  who,  besides  being  a  hero  of  the  war, 
was  inoffensive  to  the  South,  for  he  lived  in  Louisiana 


94  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  had  slaves  of  his  own.  It  is  characteristic  of  the 
time  that  the  Democrats,  in  whose  counsels  the  Southern 
men  prevailed,  now  began  a  practice  of  choosing  North- 
ern candidates,  and  nominated  General  Cass  of  Michi- 
gan, whose  distinction  had  not  been  won  in  war.  The 
Democratic  Congressmen  in  this  debate  made  game  of 
the  Whigs,  with  their  war-hero,  and  seem  to  have  car- 
ried a  crude  manner  of  pleasantry  pretty  far  when 
Lincoln  determined  to  show  them  that  they  could  be 
beaten  at  that  game.  He  seems  to  have  succeeded 
admirably,  with  a  burlesque  comparison,  too  long  to 
quote,  of  General  Cass's  martial  exploits  with  his  own, 
and  other  such-like  matter  enhanced  by  the  most  extrava- 
gant Western  manner  and  delivery. 

Anyone  who  reads  much  of  the  always  grave  and 
sometimes  most  moving  orations  of  Lincoln's  later 
years  may  do  well  to  turn  back  to  this  agreeable  piece 
of  debating-society  horse-play.  But  he  should  then  turn 
a  few  pages  further  back  to  Lincoln's  little  Bill  for  the 
gradual  and  compensated  extinction  of  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  where  Washington  stands.  He 
introduced  this  of  his  own  motion,  without  encourage- 
ment from  Abolitionist  or  Non-Abolitionist,  accompany- 
ing it  with  a  brief  statement  that  he  had  carefully 
ascertained  that  the  representative  people  of  the  district 
privately  approved  of  it,  but  had  no  right  to  commit 
them  to  public  support  of  it.  It  perished,  of  course. 
With  the  views  which  he  had  long  formed  and  continued 
to  hold  about  slavery,  very  few  opportunities  could  in 
these  years  come  to  him  of  proper  and  useful  action 
against  it.  He  seized  upon  these  opportunities  not  less 
because  in  doing  so  he  had  to  stand  alone. 

His  career  as  a  Congressman  was  soon  over.  There 
was  no  movement  to  re-elect  him,  and  the  Whigs  now 
lost  his  constituency.  His  speeches  and  his  votes  against 
the  Mexican  war  offended  his  friends.  Even  his  part- 
ner, the  Abolitionist,  Mr.  Herndon,  whose  further 
acquaintance  we  have  to  make,  was  too  much  infected 
with  the  popularity  of  a  successful  war  to  understand 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT     95 

Lincoln's  plain  position  or  to  approve  of  his  giving 
votes  which  might  seem  unpatriotic.  Lincoln  wrote 
back  to  him  firmly  but  sadly.  Persuaded  as  he  was  that 
political  action  in  advance  of  public  sentiment  was  idle, 
resigned  and  hardened  as  we  might  easily  think  him  to 
many  of  the  necessities  of  party  discipline,  it  evidently 
caused  him  nai've  surprise  that,  when  he  was  called  upon 
for  a  definite  opinion,  anybody  should  expect  him,  as  he 
candidly  puts  it,  to  "  tell  a  lie." 

As  a  retiring  Congressman  he  was  invited  to  speak 
in  several  places  in  the  East  on  behalf  of  Taylor's  can- 
didature; and  after  Taylor's  election  claimed  his  right 
as  the  proper  person  to  be  consulted,  with  certain  others, 
about  Government  appointments  in  Illinois.  Taylor  car- 
ried out  the  "  spoils  system  "  with  conscientious  thor- 
oughness; as  he  touchingly  said,  he  had  thought  over  the 
question  from  a  soldier's  point  of  view,  and  could  not 
bear  the  thought  that,  while  he  as  their  chief  enjoyed  the 
Presidency,  the  private  soldiers  in  the  Whig  ranks 
should  not  get  whatever  was  going.  Lincoln's  attitude 
in  the  matter  may  be  of  interest.  To  take  an  example, 
he  writes  to  the  President,  about  the  postmastership  in 
some  place,  that  he  does  not  know  whether  the  President 
desires  to  change  the  tenure  of  such  offices  on  party 
grounds,  and  offers  no  advice;  that  A  is  a  Whig  whose 
appointment  is  much  desired  by  the  local  Whigs,  and  a 
most  respectable  man;  that  B,  also  a  Whig,  would  in 
Lincoln's  judgment  be  a  somewhat  better  but  not  so 
popular  subject  for  appointment;  that  C,  the  present 
postmaster,  is  a  Democrat,  but  is  on  every  ground,  save 
his  political  party,  a  proper  person  for  the  office.  There 
was  an  office  which  he  himself  desired,  it  was  that  of 
"  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,"  a  new 
office  in  Washington  dealing  with  settlement  on  Govern- 
ment lands  in  the  West.  He  was  probably  well  suited 
to  it;  but  his  application  was  delayed  by  the  fact  that 
friends  in  Illinois  wanted  the  post  too;  a  certain  Mr. 
Butterfield  (a  lawyer  renowned  for  his  jokes,  which 
showed,  it  is  said,  "  at  least  a  well-marked  humorous 


96  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

intention  ")  got  it;  and  then  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  dis- 
appointed Lincoln  to  have  to  defend  Butterfield  against 
some  unfair  attack.  But  a  tempting  offer  was  made 
him,  that  of  the  Governorship  of  Oregon  Territory,  and 
he  wavered  before  refusing  to  take  work  which  would, 
as  it  happened,  have  kept  him  far  away  when  the  oppor- 
tunity of  his  life  came.  It  was  Mrs.  Lincoln  who  would 
not  let  him  cut  himself  off  so  completely  from  politics. 
As  for  himself,  it  is  hard  to  resist  the  impression  that 
he  was  at  this  time  a  tired  man,  disappointed  as  to  the 
progress  of  his  career  and  probably  also  disappointed 
and  somewhat  despondent  about  politics  and  the  possi- 
bilities of  good  service  that  lay  open  to  politicians.  It 
may  be  that  this  was  partly  the  reason  why  he  was  not 
at  all  aroused  by  the  crisis  in  American  politics  which 
must  now  be  related. 


2.    California  and  the  Compromise  of  1850. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  motive  for  the  conquests 
from  Mexico  was  the  desire  for  slave  territory.  The 
attractive  part  of  the  new  dominion  was  of  course  Cali- 
fornia. Arizona  and  New  Mexico  are  arid  regions,  and 
the  mineral  wealth  of  Nevada  was  unknown.  The 
peacefully  acquired  region  of  Oregon,  far  north,  need 
not  concern  us,  but  Oregon  became  a  free  State  in  1859. 
Early  in  the  war  a  struggle  began  between  Northerners 
and  Southerners  (to  a  large  extent  independent  of  party) 
in  the  Senate  and  the  House  as  to  whether  slavery 
should  be  allowed  in  the  conquered  land  or  not.  David 
Wilmot,  a  Northern  Democratic  Congressman,  pro- 
posed a  proviso  to  the  very  first  money  grant  connected 
with  the  war,  that  slavery  should  be  forbidden  in  any 
territory  to  be  annexed.  The  "  Wilmot  Proviso  "  was 
proposed  again  on  every  possible  occasion;  Lincoln,  by 
the  way,  sturdily  supported  it  while  in  Congress;  it  was 
always  voted  down.  Cass  proposed  as  a  solution  of  all 
difficulties  that  the  question  of  slavery  should  be  left 
to  the  people  of  the  new  Territories  or  States  them- 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT     97 

selves.  The  American  public,  apt  as  condensing  an 
argument  into  a  phrase,  dismissed  Cass's  principle  for 
the  time  being  with  the  epithet  "  squatter  sovereignty." 
Calhoun  and  his  friends  said  it  was  contrary  to  the  Con- 
stitution that  an  American  citizen  should  not  be  free  to 
move  with  his  property,  including  his  slaves,  into  terri- 
tory won  by  the  Union.  The  annexation  was  carried 
out,  and  the  question  of  slavery  was  unsettled.  Then 
events  took  a  surprising  turn. 

In  the  winter  of  1848  gold  was  discovered  in  Cali- 
fornia. Throughout  1849  gold-seekers  came  pouring  in 
from  every  part  of  the  world.  This  miscellaneous  new 
people,  whose  rough  ways  have  been  more  celebrated  in 
literature  than  those  of  any  similar  crowd,  lived  at  first 
in  considerable  anarchy,  but  they  determined  without 
delay  to  set  up  some  regular  system  of  government. 
In  the  course  of  1849  tneY  elected  a  Convention  to  draw 
up  a  State  Constitution,  and  to  the  astonishment  of  all 
the  States  the  Convention  unanimously  made  the  pro- 
hibition of  slavery  part  of  that  Constitution.  There  was 
no  likelihood  that,  with  a  further  influx  of  settlers  of 
the  same  sort,  this  decision  of  California  would  alter. 
Was  California  to  be  admitted  as  a  State  with  this  Con- 
stitution of  its  own  choice,  which  the  bulk  of  the  people 
of  America  approved? 

To  politicians  of  the  school  now  fully  developed  in 
the  South  there  seemed  nothing  outrageous  in  saying 
that  it  should  be  refused  admission.  To  them  Cal- 
houn's  argument,  which  regarded  a  citizen's  slave  as  his 
chattel  in  the  same  sense  as  his  hat  or  walking-stick, 
seemed  the  ripe  fruit  of  logic.  It  did  not  shock  them  in 
the  least  that  they  were  forcing  the  slave  system  on  an 
unwilling  community,  for  were  not  the  Northerners  pre- 
pared to  force  the  free  system?  A  prominent  Southern 
Senator,  talking  with  a  Northern  colleague  a  little  later, 
said  triumphantly :  "  I  see  how  it  is.  You  may  force 
freedom  as  much  as  you  like,  but  we  are  to  beware  how 
we  force  slavery,"  and  was  surprised  that  the  North- 
erner cheerfully  accepted  this  position.  It  is  necessary 


98  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  remember  throughout  the  following  years  that,  what- 
ever  ordinary  Southerners  thought  in  private,  their 
whole  political  action  was  now  based  on  the  assumption 
that  slavery,  as  it  was,  was  an  institution  which  no  rea- 
sonable man  could  think  wrong. 

Zachary  Taylor,  unlike  Harrison,  the  previous  hero 
of  the  Whigs,  survived  his  inauguration  by  sixteen 
months.  He  was  no  politician  at  all,  but  placed  in  the 
position  of  President,  for  which  fairness  and  firmness 
were  really  the  greatest  qualifications,  he  was  man 
enough  to  rely  on  his  own  good  sense.  He  had  come 
to  Washington  under  the  impression  that  the  disputes 
which  raged  there  were  due  to  the  aggressiveness  of  the 
North;  a  very  little  time  there  convinced  him  of  the  con- 
trary. Slave-owner  as  he  was,  the  claim  of  the  South 
to  force  slavery  on  California  struck  him  as  an  arrogant 
pretension,  and  so  far  as  matters  rested  with  him,  he  was 
simply  not  to  be  moved  by  it.  He  sent  a  message  to 
Congress  advising  the  admission  of  California  with  the 
constitution  of  its  own  choice.  When,  as  we  shall 
shortly  see,  the  great  men  of  the  Senate  thought  the 
case  demanded  conciliation  and  a  great  scheme  of  com- 
promise, he  resolutely  disagreed;  he  used  the  whole  of 
his  influence  against  their  compromise,  and  it  is  believed 
with  good  reason  that  he  would  have  put  his  veto  as 
President  on  the  chief  measure  in  which  the  compromise 
issued.  If  he  had  lived  to  carry  out  his  policy,  it  seems 
possible  that  there  would  have  been  an  attempt  to  exe- 
cute the  threats  of  secession  which  were  muttered — this 
time  in  Virginia.  But  it  is  almost  certain  that  at  that 
time,  and  with  the  position  which  he  occupied,  he  would 
have  been  able  to  quell  the  movement  at  once.  There 
is  nothing  to  suggest  that  Taylor  was  a  man  of  any 
unusual  gifts  of  intellect,  but  he  had  what  we  may  call 
character,  and  it  was  the  one  thing  wanting  in  political 
life  at  the  time.  The  greatest  minds  in  American 
politics,  as  we  shall  see,  viewed  the  occasion  otherwise, 
but,  in  the  light  of  what  followed,  it  seems  a  signal  and 
irreparable  error  that,  when  the  spirit  of  aggression  ris- 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT     99 

ing  in  the  South  had  taken  definite  shape  in  a  demand 
which  was  manifestly  wrongful,  it  was  bought  off  and  not 
met  with  a  straightforward  refusal.  Taylor  died  in  the 
course  of  1850  and  Vice-President  Millard  Fillmore,  of 
New  York,  succeeded  him.  Fillmore  had  an  appear- 
ance of  grave  and  benign  wisdom  which  led  a  French- 
man to  describe  him  as  the  ideal  ruler  of  a  Republic,  but 
he  was  a  pattern  of  that  outwardly  dignified,  yet  nerve- 
less and  heartless  respectability,  which  was  more  dan- 
gerous to  America  at  that  period  than  political  reckless- 
ness or  want  of  scruple. 

The  actual  issue  of  the  crisis  was  that  the  admission 
of  California  was  bought  from  the  South  by  large  con- 
cessions in  other  directions.  This  was  the  proposal  of 
Henry  Clay,  who  was  now  an  old  man  anxious  for  the 
Union,  but  had  been  a  lover  of  such  compromises  ever 
since  he  promoted  the  Missouri  Compromise  thirty 
years  ago;  but,  to  the  savage  indignation  of  some  of 
his  Boston  admirers,  Webster  used  the  whole  force  of 
his  influence  and  debating  power  in  support  of  Clay. 
The  chief  concessions  made  to  the  South  were  two.  In 
the  first  place  Territorial  Governments  were  set  up  in 
New  Mexico  and  Utah  (since  then  the  home  of  the  Mor- 
mons) without  any  restriction  on  slavery.  This  conces- 
sion was  defended  in  the  North  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  a  sham,  because  the  physical  character  of  those 
regions  made  successful  slave  plantations  impossible 
there.  But  it  was,  of  course,  a  surrender  of  the  prin- 
ciple which  had  been  struggled  for  in  the  Wilmot  Pro- 
viso during  the  last  four  years;  and  the  Southern  lead- 
ers showed  the  clearness  of  their  limited  vision  by 
valuing  it  just  upon  that  ground.  There  had  been  rea- 
son for  the  territorial  concessions  to  slavery  in  the  past 
generation  because  it  was  established  in  the  territories 
concerned;  but  there  was  no  such  reason  now.  The  sec- 
ond concession  was  that  of  a  new  Federal  law  to  ensure 
the  return  of  fugitive  slaves  from  the  free  States.  The 
demand  for  this  was  partly  factitious,  for  the  States  in 
the  far  South,  which  were  not  exposed  to  loss  of  slaves, 


ioo  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

were  the  most  insistent  on  it,  and  it  would  appear  that 
the  Southern  leaders  felt  it  politic  to  force  the  accept- 
ance of  the  measure  in  a  form  which  would  humiliate 
their  opponents.  There  is  no  escape  from  the  conten- 
tion, which  Lincoln  especially  admitted  without  reserve, 
that  the  enactment  of  an  effective  Act  of  this  sort  was, 
if  demanded,  due  under  the  provisions  of  the  Consti- 
tution; but  the  measure  actually  passed  was  manifestly 
defiant  of  all  principles  of  justice.  It  was  so  framed  as 
almost  to  destroy  the  chance  which  a  lawfully  free  negro 
might  have  of  proving  his  freedom,  if  arrested  by  the 
professional  slave-hunters  as  a  runaway.  It  was  the  sort 
of  Act  which  a  President  should  have  vetoed  as  a  fraud 
upon  the  Constitution.  Thus  over  and  above  the  objec- 
tion, now  plain,  to  any  compromise,  the  actual  compro- 
mise proposed  was  marked  by  flagrant  wrong.  But  it 
was  put  through  by  the  weight  of  Webster  and  Clay. 

This  event  marks  the  close  of  a  period.  It  was  the 
last  achievement  of  Webster  and  Clay,  both  of  whom 
passed  away  in  1852  in  the  hope  that  they  had  perma- 
nently pacified  the  Union.  Calhoun,  their  great  con- 
temporary, had  already  died  in  1850,  gloomily  presag- 
ing and  lamenting  the  coming  danger  to  the  Union 
which  was  so  largely  his  own  creation.  For  a  while  the 
cheerful  view  of  Webster  and  Clay  seemed  better  justi- 
fied. There  had  been  angry  protest  in  the  North  against 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law;  there  was  some  forcible  resist- 
ance to  arrests  of  negroes;  and  some  States  passed  Pro- 
tection of  Liberty  Acts  of  their  own  to  impede  the  Fed- 
eral law  in  its  working.  But  the  excitement,  which  had 
flared  up  suddenly,  died  down  as  suddenly.  In  the  Presi- 
dential election  of  1852  Northerners  generally  reflected 
that  they  wanted  quiet  and  had  an  instinct,  curiously  falsi- 
fied, that  the  Democratic  party  was  the  more  likely  to 
give  it  them.  The  Whigs  again  proposed  a  hero,  Gen- 
eral Scott,  a  greater  soldier  than  Taylor,  but  a  vainer 
man,  who  mistakenly  broke  with  all  precedent  and  went 
upon  the  stump  for  himself.  The  President  who  was 
elected,  Franklin  Pierce  of  New  Hampshire,  a  friend  of 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    101 

Hawthorne,  might  perhaps  claim  the  palm  among  the 
Presidents  of  those  days,  for  sheer,  deleterious  insig- 
nificance. The  favourite  observation  of  his  contempo- 
raries upon  him  was  that  he  was  a  gentleman,  but  his 
convivial  nature  made  the  social  attractiveness  of  South- 
ern circles  in  Washington  overpowering  to  any  brain  or 
character  that  he  may  have  possessed.  A  new  genera- 
tion of  political  personages  now  came  to  the  front. 
Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi,  a  man  of  force  and  con- 
siderable dignity,  began  to  take  the  leading  part  in  the 
powerful  group  of  Southern  Senators;  Stephen  Douglas, 
of  Illinois,  rapidly  became  the  foremost  man  of  the 
Democratic  party  generally;  William  Seward,  late  Gov- 
ernor of  New  York,  and  Salmon  Chase,  a  Democrat, 
late  Governor  of  Ohio,  had  played  a  manful  part  in 
the  Senate  in  opposition  to  Webster  and  Clay  and  their 
compromise.  From  this  time  on  we  must  look  on  these 
two,  joined  a  little  later  by  Charles  Sumner,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, as  the  obvious  leaders  in  the  struggle  against 
slavery  which  was  shortly  to  be  renewed,  and  in  which 
Lincoln's  part  seemed  likely  to  remain  a  humble  one. 

3.  Lincoln  in  Retirement. 

Whether  Seward  and  Chase  and  the  other  opponents 
of  the  Compromise  were  right,  as  it  now  seems  they 
were,  or  not,  Lincoln  was  not  the  man  who  in  the  un- 
looked-for crisis  of  1850  would  have  been  likely  to 
make  an  insurrectionary  stand  against  his  old  party- 
leader  Clay,  and  the  revered  constitutional  authority  of 
Webster.  He  had  indeed  little  opportunity  to  do  so  in 
Illinois,  but  his  one  recorded  speech  of  this  period,  an 
oration  to  a  meeting  of  both  parties  on  the  death  of 
Clay  in  1852,  expresses  approval  of  the  Compromise. 
This  speech,  which  is  significant  of  the  trend  of  his 
thoughts  at  this  time,  does  not  lend  itself  to  brief 
extracts  because  it  is  wanting  in  the  frankness  of  his 
speeches  before  and  after.  A  harsh  reference  to  Aboli- 
tionists serves  to  disguise  the  fact  that  the  whole  speech 


102  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

is  animated  by  antagonism  to  slavery.  The  occasion  and 
the  subject  are  used  with  rather  disagreeable  subtlety 
to  insinuate  opposition  to  slavery  into  the  minds  of  a 
cautious  audience.  The  speaker  himself  seems  satisfied 
with  the  mood  of  mere  compromise  which  had  governed 
Clay  in  this  matter,  or  rather  perhaps  he  is  twisting 
Clay's  attitude  into  one  of  more  consistent  opposition 
to  slavery  than  he  really  showed.  In  any  case  we  can 
be  quite  sure  that  the  moderate  and  subtle  but  intensely 
firm  opinion  with  which  a  little  later  Lincoln  returned 
to  political  strife  was  the  product  of  long  and  deep  and 
anxious  thought  during  the  years  from  1849  to  1854. 
On  the  surface  it  did  not  go  far  beyond  the  condemna- 
tion of  slavery  and  acceptance  of  the  Constitution  which 
had  guided  him  earlier,  nor  did  it  seem  to  differ  from 
the  wide-spread  public  opinion  which  in  1854  created  a 
new  party;  but  there  was  this  difference  that  Lincoln 
had  by  then  looked  at  the  matter  in  all  its  bearings,  and 
prepared  his  mind  for  all  eventualities.  We  shall  find, 
and  need  not  be  surprised  to  find,  that  he  who  now 
hung  back  a  little,  and  who  later  moved  when  public 
opinion  moved,  later  still  continued  to  move  when  pub- 
lic opinion  had  receded. 

What  we  know  of  these  years  of  private  life  is  mainly 
due  to  Mr.  William  Herndon,  the  young  lawyer  already 
quoted,  whom  he  took  into  partnership  in  1845,  an^ 
who  kept  on  the  business  of  the  firm  in  Springfield  till 
Lincoln's  death.  This  gentleman  was,  like  Boswell,  of 
opinion  that  a  great  man  is  not  best  portrayed  as  a 
figure  in  a  stained-glass  window.  He  had  lived  with 
Lincoln,  groaned  under  his  odd  ways,  and  loved  them, 
for  sixteen  years  before  his  Presidency,  and  after  his 
death  he  devoted  much  research,  in  his  own  memory 
and  those  of  many  others,  to  the  task  of  substituting  for 
Lincoln's  aureole  the  battered  tall  hat,  with  valuable 
papers  stuck  in  its  lining,  which  he  had  long  contem- 
plated with  reverent  irritation.  Mr.  Herndon  was  not 
endowed  with  Boswell's  artistic  gift  for  putting  his 
materials  together,  perhaps  because  he  lacked  that 


delicacy  and  sureness  of  moral  perception  which  more 
than  redeemed  Boswell's  absurdities.  He  succeeded  on 
the  whole  in  his  aim,  for  the  figure  that  more  or  less 
distinctly  emerges  from  the  litter  of  his  workshop  is 
lovable;  but  in  spite  of  all  Lincoln's  melancholy,  the 
dreariness  of  his  life,  sitting  with  his  feet  on  the  table 
in  his  unswept  and  untidy  office  at  Illinois,  or  riding  on 
circuit  or  staying  at  ramshackle  western  inns  with  the 
Illinois  bar,  cannot  have  been  so  unrelieved  as  it  is  in 
Mr.  Herndon's  presentation.  And  Herndon  overdid 
his  part.  He  ferreted  out  petty  incidents  which  he 
thought  might  display  the  acute  Lincoln  as  slightly  too 
acute,  when  for  all  that  can  be  seen  Lincoln  acted  just 
as  any  sensible  man  would  have  acted.  But  the  result 
is  that,  in  this  part  of  his  life  especially,  Lincoln's  way 
of  living  was  subjected  to  so  close  a  scrutiny  as  few  men 
have  undergone. 

Herndon's  scrutiny  does  not  reveal  the  current  of  his 
thoughts  either  on  life  generally  or  on  the  political 
problem  which  hereafter  was  to  absorb  him.  It  shows 
on  the  contrary,  and  the  recollections  of  his  Presidency 
confirm  it,  that  his  thought  on  any  important  topic 
though  it  might  flash  out  without  disguise  in  rare 
moments  of  intimacy,  usually  remained  long  unexpressed. 
His  great  sociability  had  perhaps  even  then  a  rather 
formidable  side  to  it.  He  was  not  merely  amusing  him- 
self and  other  people,  when  he  chatted  and  exchanged 
anecdotes  far  into  the  night;  there  was  an  element,  not 
ungenial,  of  purposeful  study  in  it  all.  He  was  build- 
ing up  his  knowledge  of  ordinary  human  nature,  his 
insight  into  popular  feeling,  his  rather  slow  but  sure 
comprehension  of  the  individual  men  whom  he  did 
know.  It  astonished  the  self-improving  young  Herndon 
that  the  serious  books  he  read  were  few  and  that  he 
seldom  seemed  to  read  the  whole  of  them — though  with 
the  Bible,  Shakespeare,  and  to  a  less  extent  Burns,  he 
saturated  his  mind.  The  few  books  and  the  great  many 
men  were  part  of  one  study.  In  so  far  as  his  thought 
and  study  turned  upon  politics  i/  seems  to  have  led  him 


104  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

soon  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  for  the  present  no 
part  to  play  that  was  worth  playing.  By  1854,  as  he 
said  himself,  "  his  profession  as  a  lawyer  had  almost 
superseded  the  thought  of  politics  in  his  mind."  But  it 
does  not  seem  that  the  melancholy  sense  of  some  great 
purpose  unachieved  or  some  great  destiny  awaiting  him 
ever  quite  left  him.  He  must  have  felt  that  his  chance 
of  political  fame  was  in  all  appearance  gone,  and  would 
have  liked  to  win  himself  a  considerable  position  and 
a  little  (very  little)  money  as  a  lawyer;  but  the  study, 
in  the  broadest  sense,  of  which  these  years  were  full, 
evidently  contemplated  a  larger  education  of  himself  as 
a  man  than  professional  keenness,  or  any  such  interest 
as  he  had  in  law,  will  explain.  Middle-aged  and  from 
his  own  point  of  view  a  failure,  he  was  set  upon  mak- 
ing himself  a  bigger  man. 

In  some  respects  he  let  himself  be.  His  exterior 
oddities  never  seem  to  have  toned  down  much;  he  could 
not  be  taught  to  introduce  tidiness  or  method  into 
his  office;  nor  did  he  make  himself  an  exact  lawyer;  a 
rough  and  ready  familiarity  with  practice  and  a  firm 
grasp  of  larger  principles  of  law  contented  him  without 
any  great  apparatus  of  learning.  His  method  of  study 
was  as  odd  as  anything  else  about  him;  he  could  read 
hard  and  commit  things  to  memory  in  the  midst  of 
bustle  and  noise;  on  the  other  hand,  since  reading  aloud 
was  his  chosen  way  of  impressing  what  he  read  on  his 
own  mind,  he  would  do  it  at  all  sorts  of  times  to  the 
sore  distraction  of  his  partner.  When  his  studies  are 
spoken  of,  observation  and  thought  on  some  plan  con- 
cealed in  his  own  mind  must  be  taken  to  have  formed 
the  largest  element  in  these  studies.  There  was,  how- 
ever, one  methodic  discipline,  highly  commended  of 
old  but  seldom  perhaps  seriously  pursued  with  the  like 
object  by  men  of  forty,  even  self-taught  men,  which  he 
did  pursue.  Some  time  during  these  years  he  mastered 
the  first  six  Books  of  Euclid.  It  would  probably  be 
no  mere  fancy  if  we  were  to  trace  certain  definite 
effects  of  this  discipline  upon  his  mind  and  character. 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    105 

The  faculty  which  he  had  before  shown  of  reducing 
his  thought  on  any  subject  to  the  simplest  and  plainest 
terms  possible,  now  grew  so  strong  that  few  men  can 
be  compared  with  him  in  this.  He  was  gaming,  too, 
from  some  source,  what  the  ancient  geometers  would 
themselves  have  claimed  as  partly  the  product  of  their 
study :  the  plain  fact  and  its  plain  consequences  were  not 
only  clear  in  calm  hours  of  thought,  but  remained 
present  to  him,  felt  and  instinctive,  through  seasons  of 
confusion,  passion,  and  dismay.  His  life  in  one  sense 
was  very  full  of  companionship,  but  it  is  probable  that 
in  his  real  intellectual  interests  he  was  lonely.  To 
Herndon,  intelligently  interested  in  many  things,  his 
master's  mind,  much  as  he  held  it  in  awe,  seemed  chill- 
ingly unpoetic — which  is  a  curious  view  of  a  mind 
steeped  in  Shakespeare  and  Burns.  The  two  partners 
had  been  separately  to  Niagara.  Herndon  was  anxious 
to  know  what  had  been  Lincoln's  chief  impression,  and 
was  pained  by  the  reply,  "  I  wondered  where  all  that 
water  came  from,"  which  he  felt  showed  materialism 
and  insensibility.  Lincoln's  thought  had,  very  obvi- 
ously, a  sort  of  poetry  of  its  own,  but  of  a  vast  and 
rather  awful  kind.  He  had  occasionally  written  verses 
of  his  own  a  little  before  this  time;  sad  verses  about 
a  friend  who  had  become  a  lunatic,  wondering  that  he 
should  be  allowed  to  outlive  his  mind  while  happy 
young  lives  passed  away,  and  sad  verses  about  a  visit 
to  old  familiar  fields  in  Indiana,  where  he  wandered 
brooding,  as  he  says, 

"  Till  every  sound  appears  a  knell, 
And  every  spot  a  grave." 

They  are  not  great  poetry;  but  they  show  a  correct  ear 
for  verse,  and  they  are  not  the  verses  of  a  man  to  whom 
any  of  the  familiar  forms  of  poetic  association  were 
unusual.  They  are  those  of  a  man  in  whom  the  habitual 
undercurrent  of  thought  was  melancholy. 

Apart    from    these    signs    and    the    deep,    humorous 
delight  which  he  evidently  took  in  his  children,  there 


io6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

may  be  something  slightly  forbidding  in  this  figure  of  a 
gaunt  man,  disappointed  in  ambition  and  not  even  happy 
at  home,  rubbing  along  through  a  rather  rough  crowd, 
with  uniform  rough  geniality  and  perpetual  jest;  all  the 
while  in  secret  forging  his  own  mind  into  an  instrument 
for  some  vaguely  foreshadowed  end.  But  there  are 
two  or  three  facts  which  stand  out  certain  and  have  to 
be  taken  account  of  in  any  image  we  may  be  tempted  to 
form  of  him.  In  the  first  place,  his  was  no  forbidding 
figure  at  the  time  to  those  who  knew  him;  a  queer  and 
a  comic  figure  evidently,  but  liked,  trusted,  and  by  some 
loved;  reputed  for  honest  dealing  and  for  kindly  and 
gentle  dealing;  remarked  too  by  some  at  that  time,  as 
before  and  ever  after,  for  the  melancholy  of  his  face 
in  repose;  known  by  us  beyond  doubt  to  have  gone 
through  great  pain;  known  lastly  among  his  fellows  in 
his  profession  for  a  fire  of  anger  that  flashed  out  only 
in  the  presence  of  cruelty  and  wrong. 

His  law  practice,  which  he  pursued  with  energy,  and 
on  which  he  was  now,  it  seems,  prepared  to  look  as 
his  sole  business  in  life,  fitted  in  none  the  less  well  with 
his  deliberately  adopted  schemes  of  self-education.  A 
great  American  lawyer,  Mr.  Choate,  assures  us  that  at 
the  Illinois  bar  in  those  days  Lincoln  had  to  measure 
himself  against  very  considerable  men  in  suits  of  a  class 
that  required  some  intellect  and  training.  And  in  his 
own  way  he  held  his  own  among  these  men.  A  lay- 
man may  humbly  conjecture  that  the  combination  in  one 
person  of  the  advocate  and  the  solicitor  must  give 
opportunities  of  far  truer  intellectual  training  than  the 
mere  advocate  can  easily  enjoy.  The  Illinois  advocate 
was  not  all  the  time  pleading  the  cause  which  he  was 
employed  to  plead,  and  which  if  it  was  once  offered 
to  him  it  was  his  duty  to  accept;  he  was  the  personal 
adviser  of  the  client  whose  cause  he  pleaded,  and 
within  certain  limits  he  could  determine  whether  the 
cause  was  brought  at  all,  and  if  so  whether  he  should 
take  it  up  himself  or  leave  it  to  another  man.  The  rule 
in  such  matters  was  elastic  and  practice  varied.  Lin- 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    107 

coin's  practice  went  to  the  very  limit  of  what  is  per- 
missible in  refusing  legal  aid  to  a  cause  he  disapproved. 
Coming  into  court  he  discovered  suddenly  some  fact 
about  his  case  which  was  new  to  him  but  which  would 
probably  not  have  justified  an  English  barrister  in 
throwing  up  his  brief.  Th^  case  was  called;  he  was 
absent;  the  judge  sent  to  his  hotel  and  got  back  a  mes- 
sage :  "  Tell  the  judge  I'm  washing  my  hands."  One 
client  received  advice  much  to  this  effect :  "  I  can  win 
your  case;  I  can  get  you  $600.  I  can  also  make  an 
honest  family  miserable.  But  I  shall  not  take  your  case, 
and  I  shall  not  take  your  fee.  One  piece  of  advice  I 
will  give  you  gratis:  Go  home  and  think  seriously 
whether  you  cannot  make  $600  in  some  honest  way." 
And  this  habit  of  mind  was  beyond  his  control.  Col- 
leagues whom  he  was  engaged  to  ass'st  in  cases  agreed 
that  if  a  case  lost  his  sympathy  he  became  helpless  and 
useless  in  it.  This,  of  course,  was  not  the  way  to  make 
money;  but  he  got  along  and  won  a  considerable  local 
position  at  the  bar,  for  his  perfect  honesty  in  argument 
and  in  statement  of  fact  was  known  to  have  won  the 
confidence  of  the  judges,  and  a  difficult  case  which  he 
thought  was  right  elicited  the  full  and  curious  powers 
of  his  mind.  His  invective  upon  occasion  was  by  all 
accounts  terrific.  An  advocate  glanced  at  Lincoln's  notes 
for  his  speech,  when  he  was  appearing  against  a  very 
heartless  swindler  and  saw  that  they  concluded  with  the 
ominous  words,  "  Skin  Defendant."  The  vitriolic  out- 
burst which  occurred  at  the  point  thus  indicated  seems 
to  have  been  long  remembered  by  the  Illinois  bar.  To 
a  young  man  who  wished  to  be  a  lawyer  yet  shrunk  from 
the  profession  lest  it  should  necessarily  involve  some 
dishonesty  Lincoln  wrote  earnestly  and  wisely,  showing 
him  how  false  his  impression  of  the  law  was,  but  con- 
cluding with  earnest  entreaty  that  he  would  not  enter 
the  profession  if  he  still  had  any  fear  of  being  led  by 
it  to  become  a  knave. 

One  of  his  cases  is  interesting  for  its  own  sake,  not 
for  his  part  in  it.     He  defended  without  fee  the  son 


io8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  his  old  foe  and  friend  Jack  Armstrong,  and  of 
Hannah,  who  mended  his  breeches,  on  a  charge  of 
murder.  Six  witnesses  swore  that  they  had  seen  him 
do  the  deed  about  1 1  P.M.  on  such  and  such  a  night. 
Cross-examined:  They  saw  it  all  quite  clearly;  they  saw 
it  so  clearly  because  of  the  moonlight.  The  only  evi- 
dence for  the  defence  was  an  almanac.  There  had  been 
no  moon  that  night.  Another  case  is  interesting  for  his 
sake.  Two  young  men  set  up  in  a  farm  together, 
bought  a  waggon  and  team  from  a  poor  old  farmer, 
Lincoln's  client,  did  not  pay  him,  and  were  sued.  They 
had  both  been  just  under  twenty-one  when  they  con- 
tracted the  debt,  and  they  were  advised  to  plead 
infancy.  A  stranger  who  was  present  in  Court  described 
afterwards  his  own  indignation  as  the  rascally  tale  was 
unfolded,  and  his  greater  indignation  as  he  watched  the 
locally  famous  Mr.  Lincoln,  lying  back  in  his  seat,  nod- 
ding complacently  and  saying,  "  I  reckon  that's  so,"  as 
each  of  the  relevant  facts  was  produced,  and  the  rele- 
vant Statute  read  and  expounded.  At  last,  as  the  on- 
looker proceeded  to  relate,  the  time  came  for  Lincoln 
to  address  the  jury,  with  whom,  by  Illinois  law,  the 
issue  still  rested.  Slowly  he  disengaged  his  long,  lean 
form  from  his  seat,  and  before  he  had  got  it  drawn  out 
to  its  height  he  had  fixed  a  gaze  of  extraordinary 
benevolence  on  the  two  disgraceful  young  defendants  and 
begun  in  this  strain :  "  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  are  you 
prepared  that  these  two  young  men  shall  enter  upon 
life  and  go  through  life  with  the  stain  of  a  dishonour- 
able transaction  for  ever  affixed  to  them,"  and  so  forth 
at  just  sufficient  length  and  with  just  enough  of  Shake- 
spearean padding  about  honour.  The  result  with  that 
emotional  and  probably  irregular  Western  court  is  obvi- 
ous, and  the  story  concludes  with  the  quite  credible 
assertion  that  the  defendants  themselves  were  relieved. 
Any  good  jury  would,  of  course,  have  been  steeled 
against  the  appeal,  which  might  have  been  expected,  to 
their  compassion  for  a  poor  and  honest  old  man.  A 
kind  of  innocent  and  benign  cunning  has  been  the  most 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    109 

engaging  quality  in  not  a  few  great  characters.  It  is 
tempting,  though  at  the  risk  of  undue  solemnity,  to  look 
for  the  secret  of  Lincoln's  cunning  in  this  instance.  We 
know  from  copybooks  and  other  sources  that  these  two 
young  men,  starting  on  the  down  grade  with  the  help  of 
their  blackguardly  legal  adviser,  were  objects  for  pity, 
more  so  than  the  man  who  was  about  to  lose  a  certain 
number  of  dollars.  Lincoln,  as  few  other  men  would 
have  done,  felt  a  certain  actual  regret  for  them  then  and 
there;  he  felt  it  so  naturally  that  he  knew  the  same 
sympathy  could  be  aroused,  at  least  in  twelve  honest  men 
who  already  wished  they  could  find  for  the  plaintiff.  It 
has  often  been  remarked  that  the  cause  of  his  later 
power  was  a  knowledge  of  the  people's  mind  which  was 
curiously  but  vitally  bound  up  with  his  own  rectitude. 
Any  attempt  that  we  may  make  to  analyse  a  subtle 
character  and  in  some  respects  to  trace  its  growth  is 
certain  to  miss  the  exact  mark.  But  it  is  in  any  case 
plain  that  Abraham  Lincoln  left  political  life  in  1849, 
a  praiseworthy  self-made  man  with  good  sound  views 
but  with  nothing  much  to  distinguish  him  above  many 
other  such,  and  at  a  sudden  call  returned  to  political 
life  in  1854  with  a  touch  of  something  quite  uncommon 
added  to  those  good  sound  views. 

4.    The  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise. 

The  South  had  become  captive  to  politicians,  per- 
sonally reputable  and  of  some  executive  capacity,  who 
had  converted  its  natural  prejudice  into  a  definite  doc- 
trine which  was  paradoxical  and  almost  inconceivably 
narrow,  and  who,  as  is  common  in  such  instances  of 
perversion  and  fanaticism,  knew  hardly  any  scruple  in 
the  practical  enforcement  of  their  doctrine.  In  the 
North,  on  the  other  hand,  though  there  were  some  few 
politicians  who  were  clever  and  well-intentioned,  public 
opinion  had  no  very  definite  character,  and  public  men 
generally  speaking  were  flabby.  At  such  a  time  the 
sheer  adventurer  has  an  excellent  field  before  him  and 
perhaps  has  his  appointed  use. 


i  io  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Stephen  Douglas,  who  was  four  years  younger  than 
Lincoln,  had  come  to  Illinois  from  the  Eastern  States 
just  about  the  time  when  Lincoln  entered  the  Legisla- 
ture. He  had  neither  money  nor  friends  to  start  with, 
but  almost  immediately  secured,  by  his  extraordinary 
address  in  pushing  himself,  a  clerkship  in  the  Assem- 
bly. He  soon  became,  like  Lincoln,  a  lawyer  and  a 
legislator,  but  was  on  the  Democratic  side.  He  rap- 
idly soared  into  regions  beyond  the  reach  of  Lincoln, 
and  in  1847  became  a  Senator  for  Illinois,  where  he 
later  became  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Terri- 
tories, and  as  such  had  to  consider  the  question  of  pro- 
viding for  the  government  of  the  districts  called  Kansas 
and  Nebraska,  which  lay  west  and  north-west  of 
Missouri,  and  from  which  slavery  was  excluded  by  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  He  was  what  in  England  is 
called  a  "  Jingo,"  and  was  at  one  time  eager  to  fight  this 
country  for  the  possession  of  what  is  now  British 
Columbia.  His  short  figure  gave  an  impression  of 
abounding  strength  and  energy  which  obtained  him  the 
nickname  of  "  the  little  Giant."  With  no  assignable 
higher  quality,  and  with  the  blustering,  declamatory, 
shamelessly  fallacious  and  evasive  oratory  of  a  common 
demagogue,  he  was  nevertheless  an  accomplished  Par- 
liamentarian, and  imposed  himself  as  effectively  upon 
the  Senate  as  he  did  upon  the  people  of  Illinois  and  the 
North  generally.  He  was,  no  doubt,  a  remarkable  man, 
with  the  gift  of  attracting  many  people.  A  political 
opponent  has  described  vividly  how  at  first  sight  he  was 
instantly  repelled  by  the  sinister  and  dangerous  air  of 
Douglas'  scowl;  a  still  stronger  opponent,  but  a  woman, 
Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe,  seems  on  the  contrary  to  have 
found  it  impossible  to  hate  him.  What  he  now  did  dis- 
played at  any  rate  a  sporting  quality. 

In  the  course  of  1854  Stephen  Douglas  while  in 
charge  of  an  inoffensive  Bill  dealing  with  the  govern- 
ment of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  converted  it  into  a  form 
in  which  it  empowered  the  people  of  Kansas  at  any  time 
to  decide  for  themselves  whether  they  would  permit 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    in 

slavery  or  not,  and  in  express  terms  repealed  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  With  the  easy  connivance  of 
President  Pierce  and  the  enthusiastic  support  of  the 
Southerners,  and  by  some  extraordinary  exercise  of  his 
art  as  demagogue  and  Parliamentarian,  he  triumphantly 
ran  this  measure  through. 

Just  how  it  came  about  seems  to  be  rather  obscure, 
but  it  is  easy  to  conjecture  his  motives.  Trained  in  a 
school  in  which  scruple  or  principle  were  unknown  and 
the  man  who  arrives  is  the  great  man,  Douglas,  like 
other  such  adventurers,  was  accessible  to  visions  of  a 
sort.  He  cared  nothing  whether  negroes  were  slaves 
or  not,  and  doubtless  despised  Northern  and  Southern 
sentiment  on  that  subject  equally;  as  he  frankly  said 
once,  on  any  question  between  white  men  and  negroes  he 
was  on  the  side  of  the  white  men,  and  on  any  question 
between  negroes  and  crocodiles  he  would  be  on  the  side 
of  the  negroes.  But  he  did  care  for  the  development 
of  the  great  national  heritage  in  the  West,  that  sub- 
ject of  an  easy  but  perfectly  wholesome  patriotic  pride 
with  which  we  are  familiar.  It  must  have  been  a  satis- 
faction to  him  to  feel  that  North  and  South  would  now 
have  an  equal  chance  in  that  heritage,  and  also  that  the 
white  settlers  in  the  West  would  be  relieved  of  any 
restriction  on  their  freedom.  None  the  less  his  action 
was  to  the  last  degree  reckless.  The  North  had  shown 
itself  ready  in  1850  to  put  up  with  a  great  deal  of  quiet 
invasion  of  its  former  principle,  but  to  lay  hands  upon 
the  sacred  letter  of  the  Act  in  which  that  principle  was 
enshrined  was  to  invite  exciting  consequences. 

The  immediate  consequences  were  two-fold.  In  the 
first  place  Southern  settlers  came  pouring  into  Kansas 
and  Northern  settlers  in  still  larger  numbers  (rendered 
larger  still  by  the  help  of  an  emigration  society  formed 
in  the  North-East  for  that  purpose)  came  pouring  in 
too.  It  was  at  first  a  race  to  win  Kansas  for  slavery 
or  for  freedom.  When  it  became  apparent  that  free- 
dom was  winning  easily,  the  race  turned  into  a  civil  war 
between  these  two  classes  of  immigrants  for  the  posses* 


iia  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sion  of  the  Territorial  government,  and  this  kept  on  its 
scandalous  and  bloody  course  for  three  or  four  years. 

In  the  second  place  there  was  a  revolution  in  the  party 
system.  The  old  Whig  party,  which,  whatever  its  tend- 
encies, had  avoided  having  any  principle  in  regard  to 
slavery,  now  abruptly  and  opportunely  expired.  There 
had  been  an  attempt  once  before,  and  that  time  mainly 
among  the  Democrats,  to  create  a  new  "  Free-soil 
Party,"  but  it  had  come  to  very  little.  This  time  a  per- 
manent fusion  was  accomplished  between  the  majority  of 
the  former  Whigs  in  the  North  and  a  numerous  seces- 
sion from  among  the  Northern  Democrats.  They  created 
the  great  Republican  party,  of  which  the  name  and 
organisation  have  continued  to  this  day,  but  of  which  the 
original  principle  was  simply  and  solely  that  there 
should  be  no  further  extension  of  slavery  upon  territory 
present  or  future  of  the  United  States.  It  naturally  con- 
sisted of  Northerners  only.  This  was  of  course  an 
ominous  fact,  and  caused  people,  who  were  too  timid 
either  to  join  the  Republicans  or  turn  Democrat,  to  take 
refuge  in  another  strange  party,  formed  about  this  time, 
which  had  no  views  about  slavery.  This  was  the 
"  American "  party,  commonly  called  the  "  Know- 
Nothing "  party  from  its  ridiculous  and  objectionable 
secret  organisation.  Its  principle  was  dislike  of  foreign 
immigrants,  especially  such  as  were  Roman  Catholics. 
To  them  ex-President  Fillmore,  protesting  against  "  the 
madness  of  the  times  "  when  men  ventured  to  say  yes 
or  no  on  a  question  relating  to  slavery,  fled  for  com- 
fort, and  became  their  candidate  for  the  Presidency  at 
the  next  election. 

It  was  in  1854  that  Lincoln  returned  to  political  life 
as  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Republican  party.  But 
it  will  be  better  at  once  to  deal  with  one  or  two  later 
events  with  which  he  was  not  specially  concerned.  The 
Republicans  chose  as  their  Presidential  candidate  in 
1856  an  attractive  figure,  John  Fremont,  a  Southerner  of 
French  origin,  who  had  conducted  daring  and  successful 
explorations  in  Oregon,  had  some  hand  (perhaps  a  very 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    113 

important  hand)  in  conquering  California  from  Mexico, 
and  played  a  prominent  part  in  securing  California  for 
freedom.  The  Southern  Democrats  again  secured  a 
Northern  instrument  in  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, an  elderly  and  very  respectable  man,  who  was 
understood  to  be  well  versed  in  diplomatic  and  official 
life.  He  was  a  more  memorable  personage  than  Pierce. 
A  great  chorus  of  friendly  witnesses  to  his  character  has 
united  in  ascribing  all  his  actions  to  weakness. 

Buchanan  was  elected;  but  for  a  brand-new  party  the 
Republicans  had  put  up  a  very  good  fight,  and  they  were 
in  the  highest  of  spirits  when,  shortly  after  Buchanan's 
Inauguration  in  1857,  a  staggering  blow  fell  upon  them 
from  an  unexpected  quarter.  This  was  nothing  less 
than  a  pronouncement  by  the  Chief  Justice  and  a  major- 
ity of  Justices  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  that  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  any  portion 
of  the  Territories,  and  therefore,  of  course,  the  whole 
aim  and  object  of  the  Republicans,  was,  as  Calhoun  had 
contended  eight  or  ten  years  before,  unconstitutional. 

Dred  Scott  was  a  Missouri  slave  whose  misfortunes  it  is 
needless  to  compassionate,  since,  after  giving  his  name 
to  one  of  the  most  famous  law  cases  in  history,  he  was 
emancipated  with  his  family  by  a  new  master  into  whose 
hands  he  had  passed.  Some  time  before  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  repealed  he  had  been  taken  by  his 
master  into  Minnesota,  as  a  result  of  which  he  claimed 
that  he  became,  by  virtue  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
a  free  man.  His  right  to  sue  his  master  in  a  Federal 
Court  rested  on  the  allegation  that  he  was  now  a  citizen 
of  Missouri,  while  his  master  was  a  citizen  of  another 
State.  There  was  thus  a  preliminary  question  to  be 
decided,  Was  he  really  a  citizen,  before  the  question,  Was 
he  a  freeman,  could  arise  at  all.  If  the  Supreme  Court 
followed  its  established  practice,  and  if  it  decided  against 
his  citizenship,  it  would  not  consider  the  question  which 
interested  the  public,  that  of  his  freedom. 

Chief  Justice  Roger  Taney  may  be  seen  from  the 
refined  features  of  his  portrait  and  the  clear-cut  literary 


ii4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

style  of  his  famous  judgment  to  have  been  a  remark- 
able man.  He  was  now  eighty-three,  but  in  unimpaired 
intellectual  vigour.  In  a  judgment,  with  which  five  of 
his  colleagues  entirely  concurred  and  from  which 
only  two  dissented,  he  decided  that  Dred  Scott  was  not 
a  citizen,  and  went  on,  contrary  to  practice,  to  pro- 
nounce, in  what  was  probably  to  be  considered  as  a  mere 
obiter  dictum,  that  Dred  Scott  was  not  free,  because  the 
Missouri  Compromise  had  all  along  been  unconstitu- 
tional and  void.  Justices  McLean  and  Curtis,  especially 
the  latter,  answered  Taney's  arguments  in  cogent  judg- 
ments, which  it  seems  generally  to  be  thought  were  right. 
Many  lawyers  thought  so  then,  and  so  did  the  prudent 
Fillmore.  This  is  one  of  the  rare  cases  where  a  lay- 
man may  have  an  opinion  on  a  point  of  law,  for  the 
argument  of  Taney  was  entirely  historical  and  rested 
upon  the  opinion  as  to  negroes  and  slavery  which  he 
ascribed  to  the  makers  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
authors  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  On  the 
question  of  Scott's  citizenship  he  laid  down  that  these 
men  had  hardly  counted  Africans  as  human  at  all,  and 
used  words  such  as  "  men,"  "  persons,"  "  citizens  "  in  a 
sense  which  necessarily  excluded  the  negro.  We  have 
seen  already  that  he  was  wrong — the  Southern  politi- 
cian who  called  the  words  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence "  a  self-evident  lie  "  was  a  sounder  historian 
than  Taney;  but  an  amazing  fact  is  to  be  added:  the 
Constitution,  whose  authors,  according  to  Taney,  could 
not  conceive  of  a  negro  as  a  citizen,  was  actually  the 
act  of  a  number  of  States  in  several  of  which  negroes 
were  exercising  the  full  rights  of  citizens  at  the  time. 
It  would  be  easy  to  bring  almost  equally  plain  consid- 
erations to  bear  against  the  more  elaborate  argument  of 
Taney  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  unconstitu- 
tional, but  it  is  enough  to  say  this  much :  the  first  four 
Presidents — that  is,  all  the  Presidents  who  were  in  pub- 
lic life  when  the  Constitution  was  made — had  all  acted 
unhesitatingly  upon  the  belief  that  Congress  had  the 
power  to  allow  or  forbid  slavery  in  the  Territories.  The 


LINCOLN  IN  CONGRESS  AND  RETIREMENT    115 

fifth,  John  Quincy  Adams,  when  he  set  his  hand  to  Acts 
involving  this  principle,  had  consulted  before  doing  so 
the  whole  of  his  Cabinet  on  this  constitutional  point  and 
had  signed  such  legislation  with  the  full  concurrence  of 
them  all.  Even  Polk  had  acted  later  upon  the  same  view. 
The  Dred  Scott  judgment  would  thus  appear  to  show  the 
penetrating  power  at  that  time  of  an  altogether  fantastic 
opinion. 

The  hope,  which  Taney  is  known  to  have  entertained, 
that  his  judgment  would  compose  excited  public  opin- 
ion, was  by  no  means  fulfilled.  It  raised  fierce  excite- 
ment. What  practical  effect  would  hereafter  be  given 
to  the  opinion  of  six  out  of  the  nine  judges  in  that  Court 
might  depend  on  many  things.  But  to  the  Republicans, 
who  appealed  much  to  antiquity,  it  was  maddening  to  be 
thus  assured  that  their  whole  "  platform  "  was  uncon- 
stitutional. In  the  long  run,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  Taney  helped  the  cause  of  freedom.  He  had  tried 
to  make  evident  the  personal  sense  of  compassion  for 
"  these  unfortunate  people  "  with  which  he  contemplated 
the  opinion  that  he  ascribed  to  a  past  generation ;  but  he 
failed  to  do  this,  and  instead  he  succeeded  in  imparting 
to  the  supposed  Constitutional  view  of  the  slave,  as 
nothing  but  a  chattel,  a  horror  which  went  home  to  many 
thousands  of  the  warm-hearted  men  and  women  of  his 
country. 

For  the  time,  however,  the  Republicans  were  deeply 
depressed,  and  a  further  perplexity  shortly  befell  them. 
An  attempt,  to  which  we  must  shortly  return,  was  made 
to  impose  the  slave  system  on  Kansas  against  the  now 
unmistakable  will  of  the  majority  there.  Against  this 
attempt  Douglas,  in  opposition  to  whom  the  Republican 
party  had  been  formed,  revolted  to  his  lasting  honour, 
and  he  now  stood  out  for  the  occasion  as  the  champion 
of  freedom.  It  was  at  this  late  period  of  bewilderment 
and  confusion  that  the  life-story  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
became  one  with  the  life-story  of  the  American  people. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   RISE   OF   LINCOLN 

I.    Lincoln's  Return  to  Public  Life. 

WE  possess  a  single  familiar  letter  in  which  Lincoln 
opened  his  heart  about  politics.  It  was  written  while 
old  political  ties  were  not  yet  quite  broken  and  new  ties 
not  quite  knit,  and  it  was  written  to  an  old  and  a  dear 
friend  who  was  not  his  political  associate.  We  may 
fittingly  place  it  here,  as  a  record  of  the  strong  and 
conflicting  feelings  out  of  which  his  consistent  purpose 
in  this  crisis  was  formed. 

"24  August,  1855. 
"  To  JOSHUA  SPEED. 

"  You  know  what  a  poor  correspondent  I  am. 
Ever  since  I  received  your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the 
22nd  I  have  been  intending  to  write  you  an  answer  to 
it.  You  suggest  that  in  political  action,  now,  you  and 
I  would  differ.  I  suppose  we  would;  not  quite  so  much, 
however,  as  you  may  think.  You  know  I  dislike  slavery, 
and  you  fully  admit  the  abstract  wrong  of  it.  So  far 
there  is  no  cause  of  difference.  But  you  say  that 
sooner  than  yield  your  legal  right  to  the  slave,  especially 
at  the  bidding  of  those  who  are  not  themselves  inter- 
ested, you  would  see  the  Union  dissolved.  I  am  not 
aware  that  any  one  is  bidding  you  yield  that  right;  very 
certainly  I  am  not.  I  leave  that  matter  entirely  to  your- 
self. I  also  acknowledge  your  rights  and  my  obliga- 
tions under  the  Constitution  in  regard  to  your  slaves.  I 
confess  I  hate  to  see  the  poor  creatures  hunted  down 
and  caught  and  carried  back  to  their  stripes  and  un- 
requited toil;  but  I  bite  my  lips  and  keep  quiet.  In  1841 
you  and  I  had  together  a  tedious  low-water  trip  on  a 
steamboat  from  Louisville  to  St.  Louis.  You  may  re- 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  117 

member,  as  I  well  do,  that  from  Louisville  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Ohio  there  were  on  board  ten  or  a  dozen  slaves 
shackled  together  with  irons.  That  sight  was  a  con- 
tinual torment  to  me,  and  I  see  something  like  it  every 
time  I  touch  the  Ohio  or  any  other  slave  border.  It 
is  not  fair  for  you  to  assume  that  I  have  no  interest 
in  a  thing  which  has,  and  continually  exercises,  the  power 
to  make  me  miserable.  You  ought  rather  to  appreciate 
how  much  the  great  body  of  the  Northern  people  do 
crucify  their  feelings,  in  order  to  maintain  their  loyalty 
to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  I  do  oppose  the 
extension  of  slavery  because  my  judgment  and  feelings 
so  prompt  me,  and  I  am  under  no  obligations  to  the 
contrary.  If  for  this  you  and  I  must  differ,  differ  we 
must.  .  .  . 

"  You  say  that  if  Kansas  fairly  votes  herself  a  free 
State,  as  a  Christian  you  will  rejoice  at  it.  All  decent 
slave  holders  talk  that  way  and  I  do  not  doubt  their 
candour.  But  they  never  vote  that  way.  Although  in 
a  private  letter  or  conversation  you  will  express  your 
preference  that  Kansas  shall  be  free,  you  will  vote  for 
no  man  for  Congress  who  would  say  the  same  thing 
publicly.  No  such  man  could  be  elected  from  any  dis- 
trict in  a  slave  State.  .  .  .  The  slave  breeders  and 
slave  traders  are  a  small,  odious  and  detested  class 
among  you;  and  yet  in  politics  they  dictate  the  course 
of  all  of  you,  and  are  as  completely  your  masters  as 
you  are  the  masters  of  your  own  negroes. 

"  You  inquire  where  I  now  stand.  That  is  a  disputed 
point.  I  think  I  am  a  Whig;  but  others  say  there  are 
no  Whigs,  and  that  I  am  an  Abolitionist.  When  I  was 
at  Washington  I  voted  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso  as  good 
as  forty  times;  and  I  never  heard  of  any  one  attempt- 
ing to  un-Whig  me  for  that.  I  now  do  no  more  than 
oppose  the  extension  of  slavery.  I  am  not  a  Know- 
Nothing,  that  is  certain.  How  coufd  I  be?  How  can 
any  one  who  abhors  the  oppression  of  negroes  be  in 
favour  of  degrading  classes  of  white  people?  Our 
progress  in  degeneracy  appears  to  me  pretty  rapid.  As 


ii8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

a  nation  we  began  by  declaring  that  '  all  men  are  created 
equal.'  We  now  practically  read  it,  '  all  men  are  created 
equal,  except  negroes.'  When  the  Know-Nothings  get 
control,  it  will  read,  '  all  men  are  created  equal,  except 
negroes  and  foreigners  and  Catholics.'  When  it  comes 
to  this,  I  shall  prefer  emigrating  to  some  country  where 
they  make  no  pretence  of  loving  liberty — to  Russia,  for 
instance,  where  despotism  can  be  taken  pure,  and  with- 
out the  base  alloy  of  hypocrisy. 

"  Mary  will  probably  pass  a  day  or  two  in  Louisville 
in  October.     My  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Speed.     On 
the  leading  subject  of  this  letter  I  have  more  of  her 
sympathy  than  I  have  of  yours ;  and  yet  let  me  say  I  am 
"  Your  friend  forever, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

The  shade  of  doubt  which  this  letter  suggests  related 
really  to  the  composition  of  political  parties  and  the 
grouping  of  political  forces,  not  in  the  least  to  the  prin- 
ciples by  which  Lincoln's  own  actions  would  be  guided. 
He  has  himself  recorded  that  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  meant  for  him  the  sudden  revival  in  a  far 
stronger  form  of  his  interest  in  politics,  and,  we  may 
add,  of  his  political  ambition.  The  opinions  which  he 
cherished  most  deeply  demanded  no  longer  patience  but 
vehement  action.  The  faculties  of  political  organisation 
and  of  popular  debate,  of  which  he  enjoyed  the  exer- 
cise, could  now  be  used  for  a  purpose  which  satisfied 
his  understanding  and  his  heart. 

From  1854  onwards  we  find  Lincoln  almost  incessantly 
occupied,  at  conventions,  at  public  meetings,  in  corre- 
spondence, in  secret  consultation  with  those  who  looked 
to  him  for  counsel,  for  the  one  object  of  strengthening 
the  new  Republican  movement  in  his  own  State  of 
Illinois,  and,  so  far  as  opportunity  offered,  in  the  neigh- 
bouring States.  Some  of  the  best  of  his  reported  and 
the  most  effective  of  his  unreported  speeches  were  deliv- 
ered between  1854  and  1858.  Yet  as  large  a  part  of 
his  work  in  these  years  was  done  quietly  in  the  back- 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  119 

ground,  and  it  continued  to  be  his  fate  to  be  called  upon 
to  efface  himself. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  in  any  detail  the  labours 
by  which  he  became  a  great  leader  in  Illinois.  It  may 
suffice  to  pick  out  two  instances  that  illustrate  the  ways 
of  this  astute,  unselfish  man.  The  first  is  very  trifling 
and  shows  him  merely  astute.  A  Springfield  newspaper 
called  the  Conservative  was  acquiring  too  much  influ- 
ence as  the  organ  of  moderate  and  decent  opinion  that 
acquiesced  in  the  extension  of  negro  slavery.  The 
Abolitionist,  Mr.  Herndon,  was  a  friend  of  the  editor. 
One  day  he  showed  Lincoln  an  article  in  a  Southern 
paper  whch  most  boldly  justified  slavery  whether  the 
slaves  were  black  or  white.  Lincoln  observed  what  a 
good  thing  it  would  be  if  the  pro-slavery  papers  of 
Illinois  could  be  led  to  go  this  length.  Herndon  ingen- 
iously used  his  acquaintance  with  the  editor  to  procure 
that  he  should  reprint  this  article  with  approval.  Of 
course  that  promising  journalistic  venture,  the  Con- 
servative, was  at  once  ruined  by  so  gross  an  indiscretion. 
This  was  hard  on  its  confiding  editor,  and  it  is  not  to 
Lincoln's  credit  that  he  suggested  or  connived  at  this 
trick.  But  this  trumpery  tale  happens  to  be  a  fair 
illustration  of  two  things.  In  the  first  place  a  large 
part  of  Lincoln's  activity  went  in  the  industrious  and 
watchful  performance  of  services  to  his  cause,  very  sel- 
dom as  questionable  but  constantly  as  minute  as  this,  and 
in  making  himself  as  in  this  case  confidant  and  adviser 
to  a  number  of  less  notable  workers.  In  the  second 
place  a  biographer  must  set  forth  if  he  can  the  mate- 
rials for  the  severest  judgment  on  his  subject,  and  in 
the  case  of  a  man  whose  fame  was  built  on  his  hon- 
esty, but  who  certainly  had  an  aptitude  for  ingenious 
tricks  and  took  a  humorous  delight  in  them,  this  duty 
might  involve  a  tedious  examination  of  many  unimpor- 
tant incidents.  It  may  save  such  discussion  hereafter  to 
say,  as  can  safely  be  said  upon  a  study  of  all  the  transac- 
tions in  his  life  of  which  the  circumstances  are  known, 
that  this  trick  on  the  editor  of  the  Conservative  marks 


120  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  limit  of  Lincoln's  deviation  from  the  straight  path. 
Most  of  us  might  be  very  glad  if  we  had  really  never 
done  anything  much  more  dishonest. 

Our  second  tale  of  this  period  is  much  more  memo- 
rable. In  1856  the  term  of  office  of  one  of  the  Senators 
for  Illinois  came  to  an  end;  and  there  was  a  chance  of 
electing  an  opponent  of  Douglas.  Those  of  the  Repub- 
licans of  Illinois  who  were  former  Whigs  desired  the 
election  of  Lincoln,  but  could  only  secure  it  by  the  adhe- 
sion of  a  sufficient  number  of  former  Democrats  and 
waverers.  United  States  Senators  were  elected  by  the 
Legislatures  of  their  own  States  through  a  procedure  sim- 
ilar to  that  of  the  Conclave  of  Cardinals  which  elects  a 
Pope ;  if  there  were  several  candidates  and  no  one  of  them 
had  an  absolute  majority  of  the  votes  first  cast,  the  can- 
didate with  most  votes  was  not  elected;  the  voting  was 
repeated,  perhaps  many  times,  till  some  one  had  an  abso- 
lute majority;  the  final  result  was  brought  about  by  a 
transfer  of  votes  from  one  candidate  to  another  in 
which  the  prompt  and  cunning  wire-puller  had  sometimes 
a  magnificent  opportunity  for  his  skill.  In  this  par- 
ticular contest  there  were  many  ballots,  and  Lincoln  at 
first  led.  His  supporters  were  full  of  eager  hope.  Lin- 
coln, looking  on,  discerned  before  any  of  them  the  set- 
ting in  of  an  under-current  likely  to  result  in  the  election 
of  a  supporter  of  Douglas.  He  discerned,  too,  that  the 
surest  way  to  prevent  this  was  for  the  whole  of  his 
friends  immediately  to  go  over  to  the  Democrat,  Lyman 
Trumbull,  who  was  a  sound  opponent  of  slavery.  He 
sacrificed  his  own  chance  instantly  by  persuading  his  sup- 
porters to  do  this.  They  were  very  reluctant,  but  he 
overbore  them;  one,  a  very  old  friend,  records  that  he 
never  saw  him  more  earnest  and  decided.  The  same 
friend  records,  what  is  necessary  to  the  appreciation  of 
Lincoln's  conduct,  that  his  personal  disappointment  and 
mortification  at  his  failure  were  great.  Lincoln,  it  will 
be  remembered,  had  acted  just  in  this  way  when  he 
sought  election  to  the  House  of  Representatives;  he  was 
to  repeat  this  line  of  conduct  in  a  manner  at  least  as 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  121 

striking  in  the  following  year.  Minute  criticism  of  his 
action  in  many  matters  becomes  pointless  when  we  ob- 
serve that  his  managing  shrewdness  was  never  more  sig- 
nally displayed  than  it  was  three  times  over  in  the  sac- 
rifice of  his  own  personal  chances. 

For  four  years,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  the  activity 
and  influence  of  which  we  are  speaking  were  of  little 
importance  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Illinois.  It  is  true 
that  at  the  Republican  Convention  in  1856  which  chose 
Fremont  as  its  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  Lincoln  was 
exposed  for  a  moment  to  the  risk  (for  so  it  was  to  be 
regarded)  of  being  nominated  for  the  Vice-Presidency; 
but  even  his  greatest  speech  was  not  noticed  outside 
Illinois,  and  in  the  greater  part  of  the  Northern  States 
his  name  was  known  to  comparatively  few  and  to  them 
only  as  a  local  notability  of  the  West.  But  in  the  course 
of  1858  he  challenged  the  attention  of  the  whole  coun- 
try. There  was  again  a  vacancy  for  a  Senator  for 
Illinois.  Douglas  was  the  sole  and  obvious  candidate 
of  the  Democrats.  Lincoln  came  forward  as  his  oppo- 
nent. The  elections  then  pending  of  the  State  Legisla- 
ture, which  in  its  turn  would  elect  a  Senator,  became  a 
contest  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas.  In  the  autumn 
of  that  year  these  rival  champions  held  seven  joint  de- 
bates before  mass  meetings  in  the  open  air  at  important 
towns  of  Illinois,  taking  turns  in  the  right  of  opening 
the  debate  and  replying  at  its  close ;  in  addition  each  was 
speaking  at  meetings  of  his  own  at  least  once  a  day  for 
three  months.  At  the  end  of  it  all  Douglas  had  won  his 
seat  in  the  Senate,  and  Lincoln  had  not  yet  gained  rec- 
ognition among  the  Republican  leaders  as  one  of  them- 
selves. Nevertheless  the  contest  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  was  one  of  the  decisive  events  in  American  his- 
tory, partly  from  the  mere  fact  that  at  that  particular 
moment  any  one  opposed  Douglas  at  all;  partly  from 
the  manner  in  which,  in  the  hearing  of  all  America, 
Lincoln  formulated  the  issue  between  them;  partly  from 
the  singular  stroke  by  which  he  deliberately  ensured  his 
own  defeat  and  certain  further  consequences. 


122  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

2.   The  Principles  and  the  Oratory  of  Lincoln. 

We  can  best  understand  the  causes  which  suddenly 
made  him  a  man  of  national  consequence  by  a  somewhat 
close  examination  of  the  principles  and  the  spirit  which 
governed  all  his  public  activity  from  the  moment  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  new  Repub- 
lican party  which  then  began  to  form  itself  stood  for 
what  might  seem  a  simple  creed;  slavery  must  be  toler- 
ated where  it  existed  because  the  Constitution  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  Union  required  it,  but  it  must  not 
be  allowed  to  extend  beyond  its  present  limits  because 
it  was  fundamentally  wrong.  This  was  what  most 
Whigs  and  many  Democrats  in  the  North  had  always 
held,  but  the  formulation  of  it  as  the  platform  of  a 
party,  and  a  party  which  must  draw  its  members  almost 
entirely  from  the  North,  was  bound  to  raise  in  an  acute 
form  questions  on  which  very  few  men  had  searched 
their  hearts.  Men  who  hated  slavery  were  likely  to  falter 
and  find  excuses  for  yielding  when  confronted  with  the 
danger  to  the  Union  which  would  arise.  Men  who  loved 
the  Union  might  in  the  last  resort  be  ready  to  sacrifice 
it  if  they  could  thereby  be  rid  of  complicity  with  slavery, 
or  might  be  unwilling  to  maintain  it  at  the  cost  of 
fratricidal  war.  The  stress  of  conflicting  emotions  and 
the  complications  of  the  political  situation  were  certain 
to  try  to  the  uttermost  the  faith  of  any  Republican  who 
was  not  very  sure  just  how  much  he  cared  for  the 
Union  and  -how  much  for  freedom,  and  what  loyalty  to 
either  principle  involved.  It  was  the  distinction  of 
Lincoln — a  man  lacking  in  much  of  the  knowledge  which 
statesmen  are  supposed  to  possess,  and  capable  of  blun- 
dering and  hesitation  about  details — first,  that  upon 
questions  like  these  he  was  free  from  ambiguity  of 
thought  or  faltering  of  will,  and  further,  that  upon  his 
difficult  path,  amid  bewildering  and  terrifying  circum- 
stances, he  was  able  to  take  with  him  the  minds  of  very 
many  very  ordinary  men. 

In    a    slightly    conventional   memorial    oration    upon 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  123 

Clay,  Lincoln  had  said  of  him  that  "  he  loved  his  coun- 
try, partly  because  it  was  his  own  country,  and  mostly 
because  it  was  a  free  country."  He  might  truly  have 
said  the  like  of  himself.  To  him  the  national  unity  of 
America,  with  the  Constitution  which  symbolised  it,  was 
the  subject  of  pride  and  of  devotion  just  in  so  far  as  it 
had  embodied  and  could  hereafter  more  fully  embody 
certain  principles  of  permanent  value  to  mankind.  On 
this  he  fully  knew  his  own  inner  mind.  For  the  preserva- 
tion of  an  America  which  he  could  value  more,  say, 
than  men  value  the  Argentine  Republic,  he  was  to  show 
himself  better  prepared  than  any  other  man  to  pay 
any  possible  price.  But  he  definitely  refused  to  preserve 
the  Union  by  what  in  his  estimation  would  have  been 
the  real  surrender  of  the  principles  which  had  made 
Americans  a  distinct  and  self-respecting  nation. 

Those  principles  he  found  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. Its  rhetorical  inexactitude  gave  him  no  trou- 
ble, and  must  not,  now  that  its  language  is  out  of 
fashion,  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  the  founders  of  the 
United  States  did  deliberately  aspire  to  found  a  com- 
monwealth in  which  common  men  and  women  should 
count  for  more  than  elsewhere,  and  in  which,  as  we 
might  now  phrase  it,  all  authority  must  defer  somewhat 
to  the  interests  and  to  the  sentiments  of  the  under  dog. 
"  Public  opinion  on  any  subject,"  he  said,  "  always  has 
a  '  central  idea '  from  which  all  its  minor  thoughts 
radiate.  The  '  central  idea  '  in  our  public  opinion  at  the 
beginning  was,  and  till  recently  has  continued  to  be,  '  the 
equality  of  man  ' ;  and,  although  it  has  always  submitted 
patiently  to  whatever  inequality  seemed  to  be  a  matter 
of  actual  necessity,  its  constant  working  has  been  a 
steady  and  progressive  effort  towards  the  practical 
equality  of  all  men."  The  fathers,  he  said  again,  had 
never  intended  any  such  obvious  untruth  as  that 
equality  actually  existed,  or  that  any  action  of  theirs 
could  immediately  create  it;  but  they  had  set  up  a 
standard  to  which  continual  approximation  could  be 
made. 


124  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

So  far  as  white  men  were  concerned  such  approxima- 
tion had  actually  taken  place;  the  audiences  Lincoln  ad- 
dressed were  fully  conscious  that  very  many  thousands 
had  found  in  the  United  States  a  scope  to  lead  their 
own  lives  which  the  traditions  and  institutions  no  less 
than  the  physical  conditions  of  their  former  countries 
had  denied  them.  There  was  no  need  for  him  to  en- 
large on  this  fact;  but  there  are  repeated  indications  of 
the  distaste  and  alarm  with  which  he  witnessed  a 
demand  that  newcomers  from  Europe,  or  some  classes 
of  them,  should  be  accorded  lesser  privileges  than  they 
had  enjoyed. 

But  notions  of  freedom  and  equality  as  applied  to  the 
negroes  presented  a  real  difficulty.  "  There  is,"  said 
Lincoln,  "  a  natural  disgust  in  the  minds  of  nearly  all 
white  people  at  the  idea  of  an  indiscriminate  amalgama- 
tion of  the  white  and  black  men."  (We  might  perhaps 
add  that  as  the  inferior  race  becomes  educated  and  rises 
in  status  it  is  likely  itself  to  share  the  same  disgust.) 
Lincoln  himself  disliked  the  thought  of  intermarriage 
between  the  races.  He  by  no  means  took  it  for  granted 
that  equality  in  political  power  must  necessarily  and 
properly  follow  upon  emancipation.  Schemes  for  colonial 
settlement  of  the  negroes  in  Africa,  or  for  gradual 
emancipation  accompanied  by  educational  measures,  ap- 
pealed to  his  sympathy.  It  was  not  given  him  to  take 
a  part  in  the  settlement  after  the  war,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  guess  what  he  would  have  achieved  as  a  con- 
structive statesman;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  would  have 
proceeded  with  caution  and  with  the  patience  of  sure 
faith;  and  he  had  that  human  sympathy  with  the  white 
people  of  the  South,  and  no  less  with  the  slaves  them- 
selves, which  taught  him  the  difficulty  of  the  problem. 
But  difficult  as  the  problem  was,  one  solution  was  cer- 
tainly wrong,  and  that  was  the  permanent  acquiescence 
in  slavery.  If  we  may  judge  from  reiteration  in  his 
speeches,  no  sophism  angered  him  quite  so  much  as  the 
very  popular  sophism  which  defended  slavery  by  present' 
ing  a  literal  equality  as  the  real  alternative  to  it.  "  I 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  125 

protest  against  the  counterfeit  logic  which  says  that 
since  I  do  not  want  a  negro  woman  for  my  slave  I  must 
necessarily  want  her  for  my  wife.  I  may  want  her  for 
neither.  I  may  simply  let  her  alone.  In  some  respects 
she  is  certainly  not  my  equal.  But  in  her  natural  right 
to  eat  the  bread  which  she  has  earned  by  the  sweat  of  her 
brow,  she  is  my  equal  and  the  equal  of  any  man." 

The  men  who  had  made  the  Union  had,  as  Lincoln 
contended,  and  in  regard  to  most  of  them  contended 
justly,  been  true  to  principle  in  their  dealing  with  slavery. 
"  They  yielded  to  slavery,"  he  insists,  "  what  the  neces- 
sity of  the  case  required,  and  they  yielded  nothing 
more."  It  was,  as  we  know,  impossible  for  them  in 
federating  America,  however  much  they  might  hope  to 
inspire  the  new  nation  with  just  ideas,  to  take  the  power 
of  legislating  as  to  slavery  within  each  existing  State  out 
of  the  hands  of  that  State.  Such  power  as  they  actually 
possessed  of  striking  at  slavery  they  used,  as  we  have 
seen  and  as  Lincoln  recounted  in  detail,  with  all  prompti- 
tude and  almost  to  its  fullest  extent.  They  reasonably 
believed,  though  wrongly,  that  the  natural  tendency  of 
opinion  throughout  the  now  freed  Colonies  with  prin- 
ciples of  freedom  in  the  air  would  work  steadily 
towards  emancipation.  "  The  fathers,"  Lincoln  could 
fairly  say,  "  place  slavery,  where  the  public  mind  could 
rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction."  The  task  for  statesmen  now  was  "  to  put 
slavery  back  where  the  fathers  placed  it." 

Now  this  by  no  means  implied  that  slavery  in  the 
States  which  now  adhered  to  it  should  be  exposed  to 
attack  from  outside,  or  the  slave  owner  be  denied  any 
right  which  he  could  claim  under  the  Constitution,  how- 
ever odious  and  painful  it  might  be,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves,  to  yield  him  his  rights. 
"  We  allow,"  says  Lincoln,  "  slavery  to  exist  in  the  slave 
States,  not  because  it  is  right,  but  from  the  necessities 
of  the  Union.  We  grant  a  fugitive  slave  law  because 
it  is  so  '  nominated  in  the  bond ' ;  because  our  fathers 
so  stipulated — had  to — and  we  are  bound  to  carry  out 


126  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

this  agreement."  And  the  obligations  to  the  slave 
owners  and  the  slave  States,  which  this  original  agree' 
ment  and  the  fundamental  necessities  of  the  Union  in- 
volved, must  be  fulfilled  unswervingly,  in  spirit  as  well 
as  in  the  letter.  Lincoln  was  ready  to  give  the  slave 
States  any  possible  guarantee  that  the  Constitution 
should  not  be  altered  so  as  to  take  away  their  existing 
right  of  self-government  in  the  matter  of  slavery.  He 
had  remained  in  the  past  coldly  aloof  from  the  Aboli- 
tionist propaganda  when  Herndon  and  other  friends 
tried  to  interest  him  in  it,  feeling,  it  seems,  that  agita- 
tion in  the  free  States  against  laws  which  existed  con- 
stitutionally in  the  slave  States  was  not  only  futile  but 
improper.  With  all  his  power  he  dissuaded  his  more 
impulsive  friends  from  lending  any  aid  to  forcible  and 
unlawful  proceedings  in  defence  of  freedom  in  Kansas. 
"  The  battle  of  freedom,"  he  exclaims  in  a  vehement 
plea  for  what  may  be  called  moderate  as  against  radical 
policy,  "  is  to  be  fought  out  on  principle.  Slavery  is 
violation  of  eternal  right.  We  have  temporised  with  it 
from  the  necessities  of  our  condition;  but  as  sure  as 
God  reigns  and  school  children  read,  that  black  foul  lie 
can  never  be  consecrated  into  God's  hallowed  truth."  In 
other  words,  the  sure  way  and  the  only  way  to  combat 
slavery  lay  in  the  firm  and  the  scrupulous  assertion  of 
principles  which  would  carry  the  reason  and  the  con' 
science  of  the  people  with  them;  the  repeal  of  the  pro- 
hibition of  slavery  in  the  Territories  was  a  defiance  of 
such  principles,  but  so  too  in  its  way  was  the  disregard 
by  Abolitionists  of  the  rights  covenanted  to  the  slave 
States.  This  side  of  Lincoln's  doctrine  is  apt  to  jar  upon 
us.  We  feel  with  a  great  American  historian  that  the 
North  would  have  been  depraved  indeed  if  it  had  not 
bred  Abolitionists,  and  it  requires  an  effort  to  sympathise 
with  Lincoln's  rigidly  correct  feeling — sometimes  harshly 
expressed  and  sometimes  apparently  cold.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible to  us,  as  it  was  to  him  a  little  later,  to  look  on 
John  Brown's  adventure  merely  as  a  crime.  Nor  can 
we  wonder  that,  when  he  was  President  and  Civil 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  127 

War  was  raging,  many  good  men  in  the  North  mis- 
took him  and  thought  him  half-hearted,  because  he 
persisted  in  his  respect  for  the  rights  of  the  Slave  States 
so  long  as  there  seemed  to  be  a  chance  of  saving  the 
Union  in  that  way.  It  was  his  primary  business,  he 
then  said,  to  save  the  Union  if  he  could;  "if  I  could 
save  the  Union  by  emancipating  all  the  slaves  I  would 
do  so;  if  I  could  save  it  by  emancipating  none  of  them, 
I  would  do  it;  if  I  could  save  it  by  emancipating  some 
and  not  others,  I  would  do  that  too."  But,  as  in  the 
letter  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  he  called  Speed 
to  witness,  his  forbearance  with  slavery  cost  him  real 
pain,  and  we  shall  misread  both  his  policy  as  President 
and  his  character  as  a  man  if  we  fail  to  see  that  in  the 
bottom  of  his  mind  he  felt  this  forbearance  to  be  re- 
quired by  the  very  same  principles  which  roused  him 
against  the  extension  of  the  evil.  Years  before,  he  had 
written  to  an  Abolitionist  correspondent  that  respect  for 
the  rights  of  the  slave  States  was  due  not  only  to  the 
Constitution  but,  "  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  a  sense  to  free- 
dom itself."  Negro  slavery  was  not  the  only  important 
issue,  nor  was  it  an  isolated  issue.  What  really  was  in 
issue  was  the  continuance  of  the  nation  "  dedicated," 
as  he  said  on  a  great  occasion,  "  to  the  proposition  that 
all  men  are  equal,"  a  nation  founded  by  the  Union  of 
self-governing  communities,  some  of  which  lagged  far 
behind  the  others  in  applying  in  their  own  midst  the  ele- 
mentary principles  of  freedom,  but  yet  a  nation  actuated 
from  its  very  foundation  in  some  important  respects  by 
the  acknowledgment  of  human  rights. 

The  practical  policy,  then,  on  which  his  whole  efforts 
were  concentrated  consisted  in  this  single  point — the 
express  recognition  of  the  essential  evil  of  slavery  by 
the  enactment  that  it  should  not  spread  further  in  the 
Territories  subject  to  the  Union.  If  slavery  were  thus 
shut  up  within  a  ring  fence  and  marked  as  a  wrong 
thing  which  the  Union  as  a  whole  might  tolerate  but 
would  not  be  a  party  to,  emancipation  in  the  slave  States 
would  follow  in  course  of  time.  It  would  come  about, 


ia8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  certainly  thought,  in  a  way  far  better  for  the 
slaves  as  well  as  for  their  masters,  than  any  forced  lib- 
eration. He  was  content  to  wait  for  it.  "  I  do  not 
mean  that  when  it  takes  a  turn  towards  ultimate  extinc- 
tion, it  will  be  in  a  day,  nor  in  a  year,  nor  in  two  years. 
I  do  not  suppose  that  in  the  most  peaceful  way  ulti- 
mate extinction  would  occur  in  less  than  a  hundred  years 
at  least,  but  that  it  will  occur  in  the  best  way  for  both 
races  in  God's  own  good  time  I  have  no  doubt."  If  we 
wonder  whether  this  policy,  if  soon  enough  adopted  by 
the  Union  as  a  whole,  would  really  have  brought  on 
emancipation  in  the  South,  the  best  answer  is  that,  when 
the  policy  did  receive  national  sanction  by  the  election 
of  Lincoln,  the  principal  slave  States  themselves  instinc- 
tively recognised  it  as  fatal  to  slavery. 

For  the  extinction  of  slavery  he  would  wait;  for  a 
decision  on  the  principle  of  slavery  he  would  not.  It 
was  idle  to  protest  against  agitation  of  the  question. 
If  politicians  would  be  silent  that  would  not  get  rid 
of  "  this  same  mighty  deep-seated  power  that  somehow 
operates  on  the  minds  of  men,  exciting  them  and  stir- 
ring them  up  in  every  avenue  of  society — in  politics,  in 
religion,  in  literature,  in  morals,  in  all  the  manifold 
relations  of  life."  The  stand,  temperate  as  it  was,  that 
he  advocated  against  slavery  should  be  taken  at  once 
and  finally.  The  difference,  of  which  people  grown 
accustomed  to  slavery  among  their  neighbours  thought 
little,  between  letting  it  be  in  Missouri,  which  they  could 
not  help,  and  letting  it  cross  the  border  into  Kansas, 
which  they  could  help,  appeared  to  Lincoln  the  whole 
tremendous  gulf  between  right  and  wrong,  between  a 
wise  people's  patience  with  ills  they  could  not  cure  and 
a  profligate  people's  acceptance  of  evil  as  their  good. 
And  here  there  was  a  distinction  between  Lincoln  and 
many  Republicans,  which  again  may  seem  subtle,  but 
which  was  really  far  wider  than  that  which  separated 
him  from  the  Abolitionists.  Slavery  must  be  stopped 
from  spreading  into  Kansas  not  because,  as  it  turned  out, 
the  immigrants  into  Kansas  mostly  did  not  want  it,  but 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  129 

because  it  was  wrong,  and  the  United  States,  where  they 
were  free  to  act,  would  not  have  it.  The  greatest  evil 
in  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  the  laxity 
of  public  tone  which  had  made  it  possible.  "  Little  by 
little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the  grave,  we 
have  been  giving  up  the  old  faith  for  the  new  faith." 
Formerly  some  deference  to  the  "  central  idea "  of 
equality  was  general  and  in  some  sort  of  abstract  sense 
slavery  was  admitted  to  be  wrong.  Now  it  was  boldly 
claimed  by  the  South  that  "  slavery  in  the  abstract  was 
right."  All  the  most  powerful  influences  in  the  coun- 
try, "Mammon"  (for  "the  slave  property  is  worth  a 
billion  dollars  "),  "  fashion,  philosophy,"  and  even  "  the 
theology  of  the  day,"  were  enlisted  in  favour  of  this 
opinion.  And  it  met  with  no  resistance.  "  You  your- 
self may  detest  slavery;  but  your  neighbour  has  five  or 
six  slaves,  and  he  is  an  excellent  neighbour,  or  your  son 
has  married  his  daughter,  and  they  beg  you  to  help 
save  their  property,  and  you  vote  against  your  interests 
and  principle  to  oblige  a  neighbour,  hoping  your  vote 
will  be  on  the  losing  side."  And  again  "  the  party  lash 
and  the  fear  of  ridicule  will  overawe  justice  and  liberty; 
for  it  is  a  singular  fact,  but  none  the  less  a  fact  and 
well  known  by  the  most  common  experience,  that  men 
will  do  things  under  the  terror  of  the  party  lash  that 
they  would  not  on  any  account  or  for  any  consideration 
do  otherwise;  while  men,  who  will  march  up  to  the 
mouth  of  a  loaded  cannon  without  shrinking,  will  run 
from  the  terrible  name  of  '  Abolitionist,'  even  when  pro- 
nounced by  a  worthless  creature  whom  they  with  good 
reason  despise."  And  so  people  in  the  North,  who 
could  hardly  stomach  the  doctrine  that  slavery  was  good, 
yet  lapsed  into  the  feeling  that  it  was  a  thing  indifferent, 
a  thing  for  which  they  might  rightly  shuffle  off  their 
responsibility  on  to  the  immigrants  into  Kansas.  This 
feeling  that  it  was  indifferent  Lincoln  pursued  and 
chastised  with  special  scorn.  But  the  principle  of  free- 
dom that  they  were  surrendering  was  the  principle  of 
freedom  for  themselves  as  well  as  for  the  negro.  The 


130  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sense  of  the  negro's  rights  had  been  allowed  to  go  back 
till  the  prospect  of  emancipation  for  him  looked  im- 
measurably worse  than  it  had  a  generation  before.  They 
must  recognise  that  when,  by  their  connivance,  they  had 
barred  and  bolted  the  door  upon  the  negro,  the  spirit  of 
tyranny  which  they  had  evoked  would  then  "  turn  and 
rend  them."  The  "  central  idea  "  which  had  now  estab- 
lished itself  in  the  intellect  of  the  Southern  was  one 
which  favoured  the  enslavement  of  man  by  man  "  apart 
from  colour."  A  definite  choice  had  to  be  made  between 
the  principle  of  the  fathers,  which  asserted  certain  rights 
for  all  men,  and  that  other  principle  against  which  the 
fathers  had  rebelled  and  of  which  the  "  divine  right  of 
kings  "  furnished  Lincoln  with  his  example.  In  what 
particular  manner  the  white  people  would  be  made  to 
feel  the  principle  of  tyranny  when  they  had  definitely 
"  denied  freedom  to  others  "  and  ceased  to  "  deserve  it 
for  themselves  "  Lincoln  did  not  attempt  to  say,  and 
perhaps  only  dimly  imagined.  But  he  was  as  convinced 
as  any  prophet  that  America  stood  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways  and  must  choose  now  the  right  principle  or  the 
wrong  with  all  its  consequences. 

The  principle  of  tyranny  presented  itself  for  their 
choice  in  a  specious  form  in  Douglas'  "  great  patent, 
everlasting  principle  of  '  popular  sovereignty.' '  This 
alleged  principle  was  likely,  so  to  say,  to  take  upon  their 
blind  side  men  who  were  sympathetic  to  the  impatience 
of  control  of  any  crowd  resembling  themselves  but  not 
sympathetic  to  humanity  of  another  race  and  colour.  The 
claim  to  some  divine  and  indefeasible  right  of  sovereignty 
overriding  all  other  considerations  of  the  general  good, 
on  the  part  of  a  majority  greater  or  smaller  at  any  given 
time  in  any  given  area,  is  one  which  can  generally  be  made 
to  bear  a  liberal  semblance,  though  it  certainly  has  no 
necessary  validity.  Americans  had  never  before  thought 
of  granting  it  in  the  case  of  their  outlying  and  unsettled 
dominions;  they  would  never,  for  instance,  as  Lincoln 
remarked,  have  admitted  the  claim  of  settlers  like  the 
Mormons  to  make  polygamy  lawful  in  the  territory  they 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  131 

occupied.  In  the  manner  in  which  it  was  now  employed 
the  proposed  principle  could,  as  Lincoln  contended,  be 
reduced  to  this  simple  form  "  that,  if  one  man  chooses 
to  enslave  another,  no  third  man  shall  have  the  right  to 
object." 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  how  far  Lincoln  foresaw 
the  strain  to  which  a  firm  stand  against  slavery  would 
subject  the  Union.  It  is  likely  enough  that  those  worst 
forebodings  for  the  Union,  which  events  proved  to  be 
very  true,  were  confined  to  timid  men  who  made  a  prac- 
tice of  yielding  to  threats.  Lincoln  appreciated  better 
than  many  of  his  fellows  the  sentiment  of  the  South,  but 
it  is  often  hard  for  men,  not  in  immediate  contact  with  a 
school  of  thought  which  seems  to  them  thoroughly  per- 
verse, to  appreciate  its  pervasive  power,  and  Lincoln  was 
inclined  to  stake  much  upon  the  hope  that  reason  will  pre- 
vail. Moreover,  he  had  a  confidence  in  the  strength  of 
the  Union  which  might  have  been  justified  if  his  prede- 
cessor in  office  had  been  a  man  of  ordinary  firmness. 
But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  any  undue  hopefulness, 
if  he  felt  it,  influenced  his  judgment.  He  was  of  a  temper 
which  does  not  seek  tp  forecast  what  the  future  has  to 
show,  and  his  melancholy  prepared  him  well  for  any  evil 
that  might  come.  Two  things  we  can  say  with  certainty 
of  his  aim  and  purpose.  On  the  one  hand,  as  has  already 
been  said,  whatever  view  he  had  taken  of  the  peril  to 
the  Union  he  would  never  have  sought  to  avoid  the  peril 
by  what  appeared  to  him  a  surrender  of  the  principle 
which  gave  the  Union  its  worth.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  must  always  have  been  prepared  to  uphold  the  Union 
at  whatever  the  cost  might  prove  to  be.  To  a  man  of 
deep  and  gentle  nature  war  will  always  be  hateful,  but 
it  can  never,  any  more  than  an  individual  death,  appear 
the  worst  of  evils.  And  the  claim  of  the  Southern  States 
to  separate  from  a  community  which  to  him  was  venerable 
and  to  form  a  new  nation,  based  on  slavery  and  bound 
to  live  in  discord  with  its  neighbors,  did  not  appeal  to 
him  at  all,  though  in  a  certain  literal  sense  it  was  a  claim 
to  liberty.  His  attitude  to  any  possible  movement  for 


132  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

secession  was  defined  four  years  at  least  before  secession 
came,  in  words  such  as  it  was  not  his  habit  to  use  without 
full  sense  of  their  possible  effect  or  without  much  pre- 
vious thought.  They  were  quite  simple :  "  We  won't 
break  up  the  Union,  and  you  shan't." 

Such  were  the  main  thoughts  which  would  be  found 
to  animate  the  whole  of  Lincoln's  notable  campaign, 
beginning  with  his  first  encounter  with  Douglas  in  1855 
and  culminating  in  his  prolonged  duel  with  him  in  the 
autumn  of  1858.  It  is  unnecessary  here  to  follow  the 
complexities,  especially  in  regard  to  the  Dred  Scott  judg- 
ments, through  which  the  discussion  wandered.  It  is 
now  worth  few  men's  while  to  do  more  than  glance  at 
two  or  three  of  his  speeches  at  that  period;  his  speeches 
in  the  formal  Lincoln-Douglas  debates,  except  the  first, 
are  not  the  best  of  them.  A  scientific  student  of  rhetoric, 
as  the  art  by  which  man  do  actually  persuade  crowds, 
might  indeed  do  well  to  watch  closely  the  use  by  Douglas 
and  Lincoln  of  their  respective  weapons,  but  for 
most  of  us  it  is  an  unprofitable  business  to  read  reiterated 
argument,  even  though  in  beautiful  language,  upon  points 
of  doubt  that  no  longer  trouble  us.  Lincoln  does  not 
always  show  to  advantage ;  later  readers  have  found  him 
inferior  in  urbanity  to  Douglas,  of  whom  he  disapproved, 
while  Douglas  probably  disapproved  of  no  man;  his 
speeches  are,  of  course,  not  free  either  from  unsound 
arguments  or  from  the  rough  and  tumble  of  popular  de- 
bate; occasionally  he  uses  hackneyed  phrases;  but  it  is 
remarkable  that  a  hackneyed  or  a  falsely  sentimental 
phrase  in  Lincoln  comes  always  as  a  lapse  and  a  surprise. 
Passages  abound  in  these  speeches  which  to  almost  any 
literate  taste  are  arresting  for  the  simple  beauty  of  their 
English,  a  beauty  characteristic  of  one  who  had  learned 
to  reason  with  Euclid  and  learned  to  feel  and  to  speak 
with  the  authors  of  the  Bible.  And  in  their  own  kind 
they  were  a  classic  and  probably  unsurpassed  achievement. 
Though  Lincoln  had  to  deal  with  a  single  issue  demanding 
no  great  width  of  knowledge,  it  must  be  evident  that  the 
passions  aroused  by  it  and  the  confused  and  shifting 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  133 

state  of  public  sentiment  made  his  problem  very  subtle, 
and  it  was  a  rare  profundity  and  sincerity  of  thought 
which  solved  it  in  his  own  mind.  In  expressing  the  result 
of  thought  so  far  deeper  than  that  of  most  men,  he 
achieved  a  clearness  of  expression  which  very  few  writers, 
and  those  among  the  greatest,  have  excelled.  He  once 
during  the  Presidential  election  of  1856  wrote  to  a  sup- 
porter of  Fillmore  to  persuade  him  of  a  proposition  which 
must  seem  paradoxical  to  anyone  not  deeply  versed  in 
American  institutions,  namely,  that  it  was  actually  against 
Fillmore's  interest  to  gain  votes  from  Fremont  in  Illinois. 
He  demonstrated  his  point,  but  he  was  not  always  judi- 
cious in  his  way  of  addressing  solemn  strangers,  and 
in  his  rural  manner  he  concludes  his  letter,  "  the  whole 
thing  is  as  simple  as  figuring  out  the  weight  of  three  small 
hogs,"  and  this  inelegant  sentence  conveys  with  little 
exaggeration  one  especial  merit  of  his  often  austerely 
graceful  language.  Grave  difficulties  are  handled  in  a 
style  which  could  arouse  all  the  interest  of  a  boy 
and  penetrate  the  understanding  of  a  case-hardened 
party  man. 

But  if  in  comparison  with  the  acknowledged  master- 
pieces of  our  prose  we  rank  many  passages  in  these 
speeches  very  high-*-and  in  fact  the  men  who  have  appre- 
ciated them  most  highly  have  been  fastidious  scholars — ! 
we  shall  not  yet  have  measured  Lincoln's  effort  and 
performance.  For  these  are  not  the  compositions  of  a 
cloistered  man  of  letters,  they  are  the  outpourings  of 
an  agitator  upon  the  stump.  The  men  who  think  hard 
are  few;  few  of  them  can  clothe  their  thought  in  apt  and 
simple  words;  very,  very  few  are  those  who  in  doing 
this  could  hold  the  attention  of  a  miscellaneous  and  large 
crowd.  Popular  government  owes  that  comparative  fail- 
ure, of  which  in  recent  times  we  have  taken  perhaps 
exaggerated  notice,  partly  to  the  blindness  of  the  polite 
world  to  the  true  difficulty  and  true  value  of  work  of  this 
kind;  and  the  importance  which  Roman  education  under 
the  Empire  gave  to  rhetoric  was  the  mark  not  of  dead- 
ness,  but  of  the  survival  of  a  manly  public  spirit.  Lin- 


134  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

coin's  wisdom  had  to  utter  itself  in  a  voice  which  would 
reach  the  outskirts  of  a  large  and  sometimes  excited 
crowd  in  the  open  air.  It  was  uttered  in  strenuous  con- 
flict with  a  man  whose  reputation  quite  overshadowed 
his;  a  person  whose  extraordinary  and  good-humoured 
vitality  armed  him  with  an  external  charm  even  for 
people  who,  like  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe,  detested  his  prin- 
ciples; an  orator  whose  mastery  of  popular  appeal  and 
of  resourceful  and  evasive  debate  was  quite  unhampered 
by  any  weakness  for  the  truth.  The  utterance  had  to  be 
kept  up  day  after  day  and  night  after  night  for  a  quarter 
of  a  year,  by  a  man  too  poor  to  afford  little  comforts, 
travelling  from  one  crowded  inn  to  another,  by  slow 
trains  on  a  railway  whose  officials  paid  little  attention  to 
him,  while  his  more  prosperous  and  distinguished  rival 
could  travel  in  comfort  and  comparative  magnificence. 
The  physical  strain  of  electioneering,  which  is  always 
considerable,  its  alternation  of  feverish  excitement  with 
a  lassitude  that,  after  a  while,  becomes  prevailing  and 
intense,  were  in  this  case  far  greater  and  more  prolonged 
than  in  any  other  instance  recorded  of  English  or  prob- 
ably of  American  statesmen.  If,  upon  his  sudden  eleva- 
tion shortly  afterwards,  Lincoln  was  in  a  sense  an  obscure 
man  raised  up  by  chance,  he  was  nevertheless  a  man  who 
had  accomplished  a  heroic  labour. 

On  the  whole  the  earthen  vessel  in  which  he  carried 
his  treasure  of  clear  thought  and  clean  feelings  appears 
to  have  enhanced  its  flavour.  There  was  at  any  rate 
nothing  outward  about  him  that  aroused  the  passion  of 
envy.  A  few  peculiarly  observant  men  were  immediately 
impressed  with  his  distinction,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that 
to  the  ordinary  stranger  he  appeared  as  a  very  odd  fish. 
"  No  portraits  that  I  have  ever  seen,"  writes  one,  "  do 
justice  to  the  awkwardness  and  ungainliness  of  his  figure." 
Its  movements  when  he  began  to  speak  rather  added 
to  its  ungainliness,  and,  though  to  a  trained  actor  his 
elocution  seemed  perfect,  his  voice  when  he  first  opened 
his  mouth  surprised  and  jarred  upon  the  hearers  with  a 
harsh  note  of  curiously  high  pitch.  But  it  was  the  sort 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  135 

of  oddity  that  arrests  attention,  and  people's  attention 
once  caught  was  apt  to  be  held  by  the  man's  transparent 
earnestness.  Soon,  as  he  lost  thought  of  himself  in  his 
subject,  his  voice  and  manner  changed;  deeper  notes,  of 
which  friends  record  the  beauty,  rang  out,  the  sad  eyes 
kindled,  and  the  tall,  gaunt  figure,  with  the  strange  gesture 
of  the  long,  uplifted  arms,  acquired  even  a  certai/i 
majesty.  Hearers  recalled  afterwards  with  evident  sin- 
cerity the  deep  and  instantaneous  impression  of  some 
appeal  to  simple  conscience,  as  when,  "  reaching  his  hands 
towards  the  stars  of  that  still  night,"  he  proclaimed, 
"  in  some  things  she  is  certainly  not  my  equal,  but  in 
her  natural  right  to  eat  the  bread  that  she  has  earned 
with  the  sweat  of  her  brow,  she  is  my  equal,  and  the 
equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  any  man." 
Indeed,  upon  a  sympathetic  audience,  already  excited  by 
the  occasion,  he  could  produce  an  effect  which  the  reader 
of  his  recorded  speeches  would  hardly  believe.  Of  his 
speech  at  an  early  state  convention  of  the  Republican 
party  there  is  no  report  except  that  after  a  few  sentences 
every  reporter  laid  down  his  pen  for  the  opposite  of  the 
usual  reason,  and,  as  he  proceeded,  "  the  audience  arose 
from  their  chairs  and  with  pale  faces  and  quivering  lips 
pressed  unconsciously  towards  him."  And  of  his  speech 
on  another  similar  occasion  several  witnesses  seem  to 
have  left  descriptions  hardly  less  incongruous  with  Eng- 
lish experience  of  public  meetings.  If  we  credit  him  with 
these  occasional  manifestations  of  electric  oratory — as 
to  which  it  is  certain  that  his  quiet  temperament  did  at 
times  blaze  out  in  a  surprising  fashion — it  is  not  to  be 
thought  that  he  was  ordinarily  what  could  be  called  elo- 
quent; some  of  his  speeches  are  commonplace  enough, 
and  much  of  his  debating  with  Douglas  is  of  a  drily 
argumentative  kind  that  does  honour  to  the  mass  meet- 
ings which  heard  it  gladly.  But  the  greatest  gift  of  the 
orator  he  did  possess;  the  personality  behind  the  words 
was  felt.  "  Beyond  and  above  all  skill,"  says  the  editor 
of  a  great  paper  who  heard  him  at  Peoria,  "  was  the  over- 
whelming conviction  imposed  upon  the  audience  that  the 


136  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

speaker  himself  was   charged  with  an   irresistible   and 
inspiring  duty  to  his  fellow  men." 

One  fact  about  the  method  of  his  speaking  is  easily 
detected.  In  debate,  at  least,  he  had  no  use  for  perora- 
tions, and  the  reader  who  looks  for  them  will  often 
find  that  Lincoln  just  used  up  the  last  few  minutes  in 
clearing  up  some  unimportant  point  which  he  wanted  to 
explain  only  if  there  was  time  for  it.  We  associate  our 
older  Parliamentary  oratory  with  an  art  which  keeps 
the  hearer  pleasedly  expectant  rather  than  dangerously 
attentive,  through  an  argument  which  if  dwelt  upon  might 
prove  unsubstantial,  secure  that  it  all  leads  in  the  end 
to  some  great  cadence  of  noble  sound.  But  in  Lincoln's 
argumentative  speeches  the  employment  of  beautiful 
words  is  least  sparing  at  the  beginning  or  when  he  passes 
to  a  new  subject.  It  seems  as  if  he  deliberately  used 
up  his  rhetorical  effects  at  the  outset  to  put  his  audience 
in  the  temper  in  which  they  would  earnestly  follow  him 
and  to  challenge  their  full  attention  to  reasoning  which 
was  to  satisfy  their  calmer  judgment.  He  put  himself 
in  a  position  in  which  if  his  argument  were  not  sound 
nothing  could  save  his  speech  from  failure  as  a  speech. 
Perhaps  no  standing  epithet  of  praise  hangs  with  such 
a  weight  on  a  man's  reputation  as  the  epithet  "  honest." 
When  the  man  is  proved  not  to  be  a  fraud,  it  suggests 
a  very  mediocre  virtue.  But  the  method  by  which  Lincoln 
actually  confirmed  his  early  won  and  dangerous  reputation 
of  honesty  was  a  positive  and  potent  performance  of 
rare  distinction.  It  is  no  mean  intellectual  and  spiritual 
achievement  to  be  as  honest  in  speech  with  a  crowd  as 
in  the  dearest  intercourse  of  life.  It  is  not,  of  course, 
pretended  that  he  never  used  a  fallacious  argument  or 
made  an  unfair  score — he  was  entirely  human.  But  this 
is  the  testimony  of  an  Illinois  political  wire-puller  to 
Lincoln :  "  He  was  one  of  the  shrewdest  politicians  in 
the  State.  Nobody  had  more  experience  in  that  way. 
Nobody  knew  better  what  was  passing  in  the  minds  of 
the  people.  Nobody  knew  better  how  to  turn  things  to 
advantage  politically."  And  then  he  goes  on — and  this 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  137 

is  really  the  sum  of  what  is  to  be  said  of  his  oratory: 
"  He  could  not  cheat  people  out  of  their  votes  any  more 
than  he  could  out  of  their  money." 


3.  Lincoln  against  Douglas. 

It  has  now  to  be  told  how  the  contest  with  Douglas 
which  concluded  Lincoln's  labours  in  Illinois  affected  the 
broad  stream  of  political  events  in  America  as  a  whole. 
Lincoln,  as  we  know,  was  still  only  a  local  personage; 
Illinois  is  a  State  bigger  than  Ireland,  but  it  is  only  a 
little  part  and  was  still  a  rather  raw  and  provincial  part 
of  the  United  States;  but  Douglas  had  for  years  been 
a  national  personage,  for  a  time  the  greatest  man  among 
the  Democrats,  and  now,  for  a  reason  which  did  him 
honour,  he  was  in  disgrace  with  many  of  his  party  and 
on  the  point  of  becoming  the  hero  of  all  moderate 
Republicans. 

We  need  not  follow  in  much  detail  the  events  of  the 
great  political  world.  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise threw  it  into  a  ferment,  which  the  continuing 
disorders  in  Kansas  were  in  themselves  sufficient  to  keep 
up.  New  great  names  were  being  made  in  debate  in 
the  Senate;  Seward,  the  most  powerful  opponent  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  kept  his  place  as 
the  foremost  man  in  the  Republican  party  not  by  con- 
sistency in  the  stand  that  he  made,  but  by  his  mastery 
of  New  York  political  machinery;  Sumner  of  Massachu- 
setts, the  friend  of  John  Bright,  kept  up  a  continual  pro- 
test for  freedom  in  turgid,  scholarly  harangues,  which 
caught  the  spirit  of  Cicero's  Philippics  most  successfully 
in  their  personal  offensiveness.  Powerful  voices  in  litera- 
ture and  the  Press  were  heard  upon  the  same  side — the 
New  York  Tribune,  edited  by  Horace  Greeley,  acquired, 
as  far  as  a  paper  in  so  large  a  country  can,  a  national 
importance.  Broadly  it  may  be  said  that  the  stirring 
intellect  of  America  old  and  young  was  with  the  Repub- 
licans— it  is  a  pleasant  trifle  to  note  that  Longfellow 
gave  up  a  visit  to  Europe  to  vote  for  Fremont  as  Presi- 


138  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dent,  and  we  know  the  views  of  Motley  and  of  Lowell 
and  of  Darwin's  fellow  labourer  Asa  Gray.  But  fashion 
and  that  better  and  quite  different  influence,  the  tone  of 
opinion  prevailing  in  the  pleasantest  society,  inclined 
always  to  the  Southern  view  of  every  question,  and  these 
influences  were  nowhere  more  felt  than  among  Washing- 
ton politicians.  A  strong  and  respectable  group  of  South- 
ern Senators,  of  whom  Jefferson  Davis  was  the  strongest, 
were  the  real  driving  power  of  the  administration.  Con- 
vivial President  Pierce  and  doting  President  Buchanan 
after  him  were  complaisant  to  their  least  scrupulous  sug- 
gestions in  a  degree  hardly  credible  of  honourable  men 
who  were  not  themselves  Southerners. 

One  famous  incident  of  life  in  Congress  must  be  told 
to  explain  the  temper  of  the  times.  In  1856,  during  one 
of  the  many  debates  that  arose  out  of  Kansas,  Sumner 
recited  in  the  Senate  a  speech  conscientiously  calculated 
to  sting  the  slave-owning  Senators  to  madness.  Sumner 
was  a  man  with  brains  and  with  courage  and  rectitude 
beyond  praise,  set  off  by  a  powerful  and  noble  frame, 
but  he  lacked  every  minor  quality  of  greatness.  He 
would  not  call  his  opponent  in  debate  a  skunk,  but  he 
would  expend  great  verbal  ingenuity  in  coupling  his  name 
with  repeated  references  to  that  animal's  attributes.  On 
this  occasion  he  used  to  the  full  both  the  finer  and  the 
most  exquisitely  tasteless  qualities  of  his  eloquence.  This 
sort  of  thing  passed  the  censorship  of  many  excellent 
Northern  men  who  would  lament  Lincoln's  lack  of  refine- 
ment; and  though  from  first  to  last  the  serious  provocation 
in  their  disputes  lay  in  the  set  policy  of  the  Southern 
leaders,  it  ought  to  be  realised  that  they,  men  who  for 
the  most  part  were  quite  kind  to  their  slaves  and  had 
long  ago  argued  themselves  out  of  any  compunction  about 
slavery,  were  often  exposed  to  intense  verbal  provocation. 
Nevertheless,  what  followed  on  Sumner's  speech  is  ter- 
ribly significant  of  the  depravation  of  Southern  honour. 

Congressman  Preston  Brooks,  of  South  Carolina,  had 
an  uncle  in  the  Senate;  South  Carolina,  and  this  Senator 
in  particular,  had  been  specially  favoured  with  self-right- 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  139 

ecus  insolence  in  Sumner's  speech.  A  day  or  so  later  the 
Senate  had  just  risen  and  Sumner  sat  writing  at  his  desk 
in  the  Senate  chamber  in  a  position  in  which  he  could  not 
quickly  rise.  Brooks  walked  in,  burning  with  piety 
towards  his  State  and  his  uncle,  and  in  the  presence,  it 
seems,  of  Southern  Senators  who  could  have  stopped 
him,  beat  Sumner  on  the  head  with  a  stick  with  all  his 
might.  Sumner  was  incapacitated  by  injuries  to  his  spine 
for  nearly  five  years.  Brooks,  with  a  virtuous  air,  ex- 
plained in  Congress  that  he  had  caught  Sumner  in  a 
helpless  attitude  because  if  Sumner  had  been  free  to 
use  his  superior  strength  he,  Brooks,  would  have  had 
to  shoot  him  with  his  revolver.  It  seems  to  be  hardly  an 
exaggeration  to  say  that  the  whole  South  applauded 
Brooks  and  exulted.  Exuberant  Southerners  took  to 
challenging  Northern  men,  knowing  well  that  their  prin- 
ciples compelled  them  to  refuse  duels,  but  that  the  refusal 
would  still  be  humiliating  to  the  North.  Brooks  himself 
challenged  Burlingame,  a  distinguished  Congressman  aft- 
erwards sent  by  Lincoln  as  Minister  to  China,  who  had 
denounced  him.  Burlingame  accepted,  and  his  second 
arranged  for  a  rifle  duel  at  a  wild  spot  across  the  frontier 
at  Niagara.  Brooks  then  drew  back;  he  alleged,  perhaps 
sincerely,  that  he  would  have  been  murdered  on  his  way 
through  the  Northern  States,  but  Northern  people  were 
a  little  solaced.  The  whole  disgusting  story  contains  only 
one  pleasant  incident.  Preston  Brooks,  who,  after  num- 
bers of  congratulations,  testimonials,  and  presentations, 
died  within  a  year  of  his  famous  exploit,  had  first  con- 
fessed himself  tired  of  being  a  hero  to  every  vulgar  bully 
in  the  South ! 

Now,  though  this  dangerous  temper  burned  steadily  in 
the  South,  and  there  were  always  sturdy  Republicans 
ready  to  provoke  it,  and  questions  arising  out  of  slavery 
would  constantly  recur  to  disturb  high  political  circles,  it 
is  not  to  be  imagined  that  opinion  in  the  North,  the  grow- 
ing and  bustling  portion  of  the  States,  would  remain  for 
years  excited  about  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise. In  1857  men's  minds  were  agitated  by  a  great 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

commercial  depression  and  collapse  of  credit,  and  in  1858 
there  took  place  one  of  the  most  curious  (for  it  would 
seem  to  have  deserved  this  cold  description)  of  evanescent 
religious  revivals.  Meanwhile,  by  1857  tne  actual  blood- 
shed in  Kansas  had  come  to  an  end  under  the  administra- 
tion of  an  able  Governor;  the  enormous  majority  of  set- 
tlers in  Kansas  were  now  known  to  be  against  slavery  and 
it  was  probably  assumed  that  the  legalisation  of  slavery 
could  not  be  forced  upon  them.  Prohibition  of  slavery 
there  by  Congress  thus  began  to  seem  needless,  and  the 
Dred  Scott  judgments  raised  at  least  a  grave  doubt  as 
to  whether  it  was  possible.  Thus  enthusiasm  for  the 
original  platform  of  the  Republicans  was  cooling  down, 
and  to  the  further  embarrassment  of  that  party,  when 
towards  the  end  of  1857  the  Southern  leaders  attempted 
a  legislative  outrage,  the  great  champion  of  the  Northern 
protest  was  not  a  Republican,  but  Douglas  himself. 

A  Convention  had  been  elected  in  Kansas  to  frame  a 
State  Constitution.  It  represented  only  a  fraction  of  the 
people,  since,  for  some  reason  good  or  bad,  the  opponents 
of  slavery  did  not  vote  in  the  election.  But  it  was  under- 
stood that  whatever  Constitution  was  framed  would  be 
submitted  to  the  popular  vote.  The  Convention  framed 
a  Constitution  legalising  slavery,  and  its  proposals  came 
before  Congress  backed  by  the  influence  of  Buchanan. 
Under  them  the  people  of  Kansas  were  to  vote  whether 
they  would  have  this  Constitution  as  it  stood,  or  have  it 
with  the  legalisation  of  slavery  restricted  to  the  slaves 
who  had  then  been  brought  into  the  territory.  No  oppor- 
tunity was  to  be  given  them  of  rejecting  the  Constitution 
altogether,  though  Governor  Walker,  himself  in  favor 
of  slavery,  assured  the  President  that  they  wished  to  do 
so.  Ultimately,  by  way  of  concession  to  vehement  resist- 
ance, the  majority  in  Congress  passed  an  Act  under  which 
the  people  in  Kansas  were  to  vote  simply  for  or  against 
the  slavery  Constitution  as  it  stood,  only — if  they  voted 
for  it,  they  as  a  State  were  to  be  rewarded  with  a  large 
grant  of  public  lands  belonging  to  the  Union  in  their 
territory.  Eventually  the  Kansas  people,  unmoved  by 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  141 

this  bribe,  rejected  the  Constitution  by  a  majority  of 
more  than  11,000  to  1,800.  Now,  the  Southern  leaders, 
three  years  before,  had  eagerly  joined  with  Douglas  to 
claim  a  right  of  free  choice  for  the  Kansas  people.  The 
shamelessness  of  this  attempt  to  trick  them  out  of  it  is 
more  significant  even  than  the  tale  of  Preston  Brooks. 
There  was  no  hot  blood  there;  the  affair  was  quietly 
plotted  by  respected  leaders  of  the  South.  They  were 
men  in  many  ways  of  character  and  honour,  understood 
by  weak  men  like  Buchanan  to  represent  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  American  public  life.  But,  as  they  showed  also 
in  other  instances  that  cannot  be  related  here,  slavery 
had  become  for  them  a  sacred  cause  which  hallowed 
almost  any  means.  It  is  essential  to  remember  this  in 
trying  to  understand  the  then  political  situation. 

Douglas  here  behaved  very  honourably.  He,  with  his 
cause  of  popular  sovereignty,  could  not  have  afforded  to 
identify  himself  with  the  fraud  on  Kansas,  but  he  was 
a  good  enough  trickster  to  have  made  his  protest  safely 
if  he  had  cared  to  do  so.  As  it  was  he  braved  the  hatred 
of  Buchanan  and  the  fury  of  his  Southern  friends  by 
instant,  manly,  courageous,  and  continued  opposition.  It 
may  therefore  seem  an  ungracious  thing  that,  immediately 
after  this,  Lincoln  should  have  accepted  the  invitation  of 
his  friends  to  oppose  Douglas'  re-election.  To  most  of 
the  leading  Republicans  out  of  Illinois  it  seemed  altogether 
unwise  and  undesirable  that  their  party,  which  had  seemed 
to  be  losing  ground,  should  do  anything  but  welcome 
Douglas  as  an  ally.  Of  these  Seward  indeed  went  too 
far  for  his  friends,  and  in  his  sanguine  hope  that  it  would 
work  for  freedom  was  ready  to  submit  to  the  doctrine 
of  "  popular  sovereignty  " ;  but,  except  the  austere  Chase, 
now  Governor  of  Ohio,  who  this  once,  but  unfortunately 
not  again,  was  whole-heartedly  with  Lincoln,  the  Repub- 
lican leaders  in  the  East,  and  great  Republican  journals, 
like  the  Tribune,  declared  their  wish  that  Douglas 
should  be  re-elected.  Why,  then,  did  Lincoln  stand 
against  him? 

It  has  often  been  suggested  that  his  personal  feelings 


i42  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

towards  Douglas  played  some  part  in  the  matter, 
though  no  one  thinks  they  played  the  chief  part.  Prob- 
ably they  did  play  a  part,  and  it  is  a  relief  to  think  that 
Lincoln  thoroughly  gratified  some  minor  feelings  in  this 
contest.  Lincoln  no  doubt  enjoyed  measuring  himself 
against  other  men;  and  it  was  galling  to  his  ambition  to 
have  been  so  completely  outstripped  by  a  man  inferior 
to  him  in  every  power  except  that  of  rapid  success.  He 
had  also  the  deepest  distrust  for  Douglas  as  a  politician, 
thinking  that  he  had  neither  principle  nor  scruple,  though 
Herndon,  who  knew,  declares  he  neither  distrusted  nor 
had  cause  to  distrust  Douglas  in  his  professional  dealings 
as  a  lawyer.  He  had,  by  the  way,  one  definite,  if  trifling, 
score  to  wipe  off.  After  their  joint  debate  at  Peoria  in 
1855  Douglas,  finding  him  hard  to  tackle,  suggested  to 
Lincoln  that  they  should  both  undertake  to  make  no  more 
speeches  for  the  present.  Lincoln  oddly  assented  at  once, 
perhaps  for  no  better  reason  than  a  ridiculous  difficulty, 
to  which  he  once  confessed,  in  refusing  any  request  what- 
ever. Lincoln  of  course  had  kept  this  agreement  strictly, 
while  Douglas  had  availed  himself  of  the  first  temptation 
to  break  it.  Thus  on  all  grounds  we  may  be  sure  that 
Lincoln  took  pleasure  in  now  opposing  Douglas.  But  to 
go  further  and  say  that  the  two  men  cordially  hated  each 
other  is  probably  to  misread  both.  There  is  no  necessary 
connection  between  a  keen  desire  to  beat  a  man  and  any 
sort  of  malignity  towards  him.  That  much  at  least  may 
be  learned  in  English  schools,  and  the  whole  history  of 
his  dealing  with  men  shows  that  in  some  school  or  other 
Lincoln  had  learned  it  very  thoroughly.  Douglas,  too, 
though  an  unscrupulous,  was  not,  we  may  guess,  an  ungen- 
erous man. 

But  the  main  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  Lincoln  would 
have  turned  traitor  to  his  rooted  convictions  if  he  had 
not  stood  up  and  fought  Douglas  even  at  this  moment 
when  Douglas  was  deserving  of  some  sympathy. 
Douglas,  it  must  be  observed,  had  simply  acted  on  his 
principle  that  the  question  between  slavery  and  freedom 
was  to  be  settled  by  local,  popular  choice;  he  claimed 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  143 

for  the  white  men  of  Kansas  the  fair  opportunity  of 
voting;  given  that,  he  persistently  declared,  "  I  do  not 
care  whether  slavery  be  voted  up  or  voted  down."  In 
Lincoln's  settled  opinion  this  moral  attitude  of  indifference 
to  the  wrongfulness  of  slavery,  so  long  as  respect  was 
had  to  the  liberties  of  the  privileged  race,  was,  so  to  say, 
treason  to  the  basic  principle  of  the  American  Common- 
wealth, a  treason  which  had  steadily  been  becoming  rife 
and  upon  which  it  was  time  to  stamp. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  his  earnestness  about  this. 
But  the  Republican  leaders,  honourably  enough,  regarded 
this  as  an  unpractical  line  to  take,  and  indeed  to  the 
political  historian  this  is  the  most  crucial  question  in 
American  history.  Nobody  can  say  that  civil  war  would 
or  would  not  have  occurred  if  this  or  that  had  been  done 
a  little  differently,  but  Abraham  Lincoln,  at  this  crisis 
of  his  life,  did,  in  pursuance  of  his  peculiarly  cherished 
principle,  forge  at  least  a  link  in  the  chain  of  events  which 
actually  precipitated  the  war.  And  he  did  it  knowing 
better  than  any  other  man  that  he  was  doing  something 
of  great  national  importance,  involving  at  least  great 
national  risk.  Was  he  pursuing  his  principles,  moderate 
as  they  were  in  the  original  conception,  with  fanaticism, 
or  at  the  best  preferring  a  solemn  consistency  of  theory 
to  the  conscientious  handling  of  facts  not  reducible  to 
theory?  As  a  question  of  practical  statesmanship  in  the 
largest  sense,  how  did  matters  really  stand  in  regard  to 
slavery  and  to  the  relations  between  South  and  North, 
and  what  was  Lincoln's  idea  of  "  putting  slavery  back 
where  the  fathers  placed  it  "  really  worth? 

Herndon  in  these  days  went  East  to  try  to  enlist  the 
support  of  the  great  men  for  Lincoln.  He  found  them 
friendly  but  immovable.  Editor  Horace  Greeley  said 
to  him:  "  The  Republican  standard  is  too  high;  we  want 
something  practical."  This,  we  may  be  pretty  sure,  stiff- 
ened Lincoln's  back,  as  a  man  with  a  cause  that  he  cared 
for,  and,  for  that  matter,  as  a  really  shrewd  manager 
in  a  party  which  he  thought  stood  for  something.  It 
reveals  the  flabbiness  which  the  Northerners  were  in 


144  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

danger  of  making  a  governing  tradition  of  policy.  The 
wrongfulness  of  any  extension  of  slavery  might  be  loudly 
asserted  in  1854,  but  in  1858,  when  it  no  longer  looked 
as  if  so  great  an  extension  of  it  was  really  imminent,  there 
was  no  harm  in  shifting  towards  some  less  provocative 
principle  on  which  more  people  at  the  moment  might 
agree.  Confronted  with  Northern  politicians  who  would 
reason  in  this  fashion  stood  a  united  South  whose  leaders 
were  by  now  accustomed  to  make  the  Union  Government 
go  which  way  they  chose  and  had  no  sort  of  disposition 
to  compromise  their  principle  in  the  least.  "  What," 
as  Lincoln  put  it  in  an  address  given,  not  long  after  his 
contest  with  Douglas,  at  the  Cooper  Institute  in  New 
York,  "what  do  you  think  will  content  the  South?" 
"  Nothing,"  he  answered,  "  but  an  acknowledgment  that 
slavery  is  right."  "  Holding  as  they  do  that  slavery  is 
morally  right  and  socially  elevating,  they  cannot  cease  to 
demand  a  full  national  recognition  of  it,  as  a  legal  right 
and  a  social  blessing.  Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this 
on  any  ground  save  our  conviction  that  slavery  is  wrong." 
That  being  so,  there  was  no  use,  he  said,  in  "  groping 
about  for  some  middle  ground  between  right  and  wrong," 
or  in  "  a  policy  of  '  don't  care  '  on  a  question  about  which 
all  true  men  do  care."  And  there  is  ample  evidence 
that  he  understood  rightly  the  policy  of  the  South.  It  is 
very  doubtful  whether  any  large  extension  of  cultivation 
by  slave  labour  was  economically  possible  in  Kansas  or 
in  regions  yet  further  North,  but  we  have  seen  to  what 
lengths  the  Southern  leaders  would  go  in  the  attempt  to 
secure  even  a  limited  recognition  of  slavery  as  lawful 
in  a  new  State.  They  were  not  succeeding  in  the  business 
of  the  Kansas  Constitution.  But  they  had  a  very  good 
prospect  of  a  far  more  important  success.  The  cele- 
brated dicta  of  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  other  judges 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case  had  not  amounted  to  an  actual 
decision,  nor  if  they  had  would  a  single  decision  have 
been  irreversible.  Whether  the  principle  of  them  should 
become  fixed  in  American  Constitutional  law  depended 
(though  this  could  not  be  openly  said)  on  whether  future 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  145 

appointments  to  the  Supreme  Court  were  to  be  made  by 
a  President  who  shared  Taney's  views;  whether  the 
executive  action  of  the  President  was  governed  by  the 
same  views;  and  on  the  subtle  pressure  which  outside 
opinion  does  exercise,  and  in  this  case  had  surely  exercised, 
upon  judicial  minds.  If  the  simple  principle  that  the  right 
to  a  slave  is  just  one  form  of  the  ordinary  right  to  prop- 
erty once  became  firmly  fixed  in  American  jurisprudence 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  any  laws  prohibiting  slavery  could 
have  continued  to  be  held  constitutional  except  in  States 
which  were  free  States  when  the  Constitution  was 
adopted.  Of  course,  a  State  like  New  York  where  slaves 
were  industrially  useless  would  not  therefore  have  been 
filled  with  slave  plantations,  but,  among  a  loyally  minded 
people,  the  tradition  which  reprobated  slavery  would 
have  been  greatly  weakened.  The  South  would  have  been 
freed  from  the  sense  that  slavery  was  a  doomed  institu- 
tion. If  attempts  to  plant  slavery  further  in  the  West 
with  profit  failed,  there  was  Cuba  and  there  was  Central 
America,  on  which  filibustering  raids  already  found 
favour  in  the  South,  and  in  which  the  national  Govern- 
ment might  be  led  to  adopt  schemes  of  conquest  or  annex- 
ation. Moreover,  it  was  avowed  by  leaders  like  Jefferson 
Davis  that  though  it  might  be  impracticable  to  hope  for 
the  repeal  of  the  prohibition  of  the  slave  trade,  at  least 
some  relaxation  of  its  severity  ought  to  be  striven  for, 
in  the  interest  of  Texas  and  New  Mexico  and  of  possible 
future  Territories  where  there  might  be  room  for  more 
slaves.  Such  were  the  views  of  the  leaders  whose  influ- 
ence preponderated  with  the  present  President  and  in 
the  main  with  the  present  Congress.  When  Lincoln 
judged  that  a  determined  stand  against  their  policy  was 
required,  and  further  that  no  such  stand  could  be  possible 
to  a  party  which  had  embraced  Douglas  with  his  prin- 
ciple, "  I  care  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  up  or  voted 
down,"  there  is  no  doubt  now  that  he  was  right  and  the 
great  body  of  Republican  authority  opposed  to  him 
wrong. 

When  Lincoln  and  his  friends  in  Illinois  determined 


i46  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  fight  Douglas,  it  became  impossible  for  the  Repub- 
lican party  as  a  whole  to  fall  far  behind  them.  This 
was  in  itself  at  that  crisis  an  important  thing.  Lincoln 
added  greatly  to  its  importance  by  the  opening  words  in 
the  first  speech  of  his  campaign.  They  were  the  most 
carefully  prepared  words  that  he  had  yet  spoken,  and 
the  most  momentous  that  he  had  spoken  till  now  or 
perhaps  ever  spoke.  There  is  nothing  in  them  for  which 
what  has  been  said  of  the  situation  and  of  his  views 
will  not  have  prepared  us,  and  nothing  which  thousands 
of  men  might  not  have  said  to  one  another  in  private 
for  a  year  or  two  before.  But  the  first  public  avowal 
by  a  responsible  man  in  trenchant  phrase,  that  a  grave 
issue  has  been  joined  upon  which  one  party  or  the  other 
must  accept  entire  defeat,  may  be  an  event  of  great  and 
perilous  consequence. 

He  said :  "  If  we  could  first  know  where  we  are  and 
whither  we  are  tending,  we  could  better  judge  what  to 
do  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year 
since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object,  and 
confident  promise,  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation. 
Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has 
not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  In 
my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have 
been  reached  and  passed.  '  A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand.'  I  believe  this  Government  cannot  endure 
permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect 
the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to 
fall — but  I  do  expect  that  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It 
will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it 
and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  is  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates 
will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  lawful  alike  in 
all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new — North  as  well  as 
South." 

It  may  perhaps  be  said  that  American  public  opinion 
has  in  the  past  been  very  timid  in  facing  clear-cut  issues. 
But,  as  has  already  been  observed,  an  apt  phrase  crystal- 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  147 

Using  the  unspoken  thought  of  many  is  even  more  readily 
caught  up  in  America  than  anywhere  else;  so,  though 
but  few  people  in  States  at  a  distance  paid  much  attention 
to  the  rest  of  the  debates,  or  for  a  while  again  to  Lincoln, 
the  comparison  of  the  house  divided  against  itself  pro- 
duced an  effect  in  the  country  which  did  not  wear  out. 
In  this  whole  passage,  moreover,  Lincoln  had  certainly 
formulated  the  question  before  the  nation  more  boldly, 
more  clearly,  more  truly  than  any  one  before.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  estimate  such  influences  precisely,  but  this  was 
among  the  speeches  that  rank  as  important  actions,  and 
the  story,  most  characteristic  of  the  speaker,  which  lay 
behind  it,  is  worth  relating  in  detail.  Lincoln  had  actually 
in  a  speech  in  1856  declared  that  the  United  States  could 
not  long  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  "  What  in 
God's  name,"  said  some  friend  after  the  meeting,  "  could 
induce  you  to  promulgate  such  an  opinion?"  "  Lip  on 
my  soul,"  he  said,  "  I  think  it  is  true,"  and  he  could  not 
be  argued  out  of  this  opinion.  Finally  the  friend  pro- 
tested that,  true  or  not,  no  good  could  come  of  spreading 
this  opinion  abroad,  and  after  grave  reflection  Lincoln 
promised  not  to  utter  it  again  for  the  present.  Now,  in 
1858,  having  prepared  his  speech  he  read  it  to  Herndon. 
Herndon  questioned  whether  the  passage  on  the  divided 
house  was  politic.  Lincoln  said :  "  I  would  rather  be 
defeated  with  this  expression  in  my  speech,  and  uphold 
and  discuss  it  before  the  people,  than  be  victorious  with- 
out it."  Once  more,  just  before  he  delivered  it,  he  read 
it  over  to  a  dozen  or  so  of  his  closest  supporters,  for  it 
was  his  way  to  discuss  his  intentions  fully  with  friends, 
sometimes  accepting  their  advice  most  submissively  and 
sometimes  disregarding  it  wholly.  One  said  it  was 
"  ahead  of  its  time,"  another  that  it  was  a  "  damned 
fool  utterance."  All  more  or  less  strongly  condemned 
it,  except  this  time  Herndon,  who,  according  to  his 
recollection,  said,  "  It  will  make  you  President."  He 
listened  to  all  and  then  addressed  them,  we  are  told,  sub- 
stantially as  follows :  "  Friends,  this  thing  has  been  re- 
tarded long  enough.  The  time  has  come  when  these 


148  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sentiments  should  be  uttered;  and  if  it  is  decreed  that  I 
should  go  down  because  of  this  speech,  then  let  me  go 
down  linked  to  the  truth — let  me  die  in  the  advocacy  of 
what  is  just  and  right."  Rather  a  memorable  pronounce- 
ment of  a  candidate  to  his  committee;  and  the  man  who 
records  it  is  insistent  upon  every  little  illustration  he  can 
find  both  of  Lincoln's  cunning  and  of  his  ambition. 

Lincoln  did  go  down  in  this  particular  contest.  Many 
friends  wrote  and  reproved  him  after  this  "  damned 
fool  utterance,"  but  his  defeat  was  not,  after  all,  attrib- 
uted to  that.  All  the  same  he  did  himself  assure  his 
defeat,  and  he  did  it  with  extraordinary  skill,  for  the 
purpose  of  ensuring  that  the  next  President  should  be  a 
Republican  President,  though  it  is  impossible  he  should 
at  that  time  have  counted  upon  being  himself  that  Repub- 
lican. Each  candidate  had  undertaken  to  answer  set 
questions  which  his  opponent  might  propound  to  him. 
And  great  public  attention  was  paid  to  the  answers  to 
these  interrogatories.  The  Dred  Scott  judgments  created 
a  great  difficulty  for  Douglas;  he  was  bound  to  treat 
them  as  right;  but  if  they  were  right  and  Congress  had 
no  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  a  Territory,  neither  could 
a  Territorial  Legislature  with  authority  delegated  by 
Congress  have  that  power;  and,  if  this  were  made  clear, 
it  would  seem  there  was  an  end  of  that  free  choice  of 
the  people  in  the  Territories  of  which  Douglas  had  been 
the  great  advocate.  Douglas  would  use  all  his  evasive 
skill  in  keeping  away  from  this  difficult  point.  If,  how- 
ever, he  could  be  forced  to  face  it  Lincoln  knew  what 
he  would  say.  He  would  say  that  slavery  would  not  be 
actually  unlawful  in  a  Territory,  but  would  never  actually 
exist  in  it  if  the  Territorial  Legislature  chose  to  abstain, 
as  it  could,  from  passing  any  of  the  laws  which  would 
in  practice  be  necessary  to  protect  slave  property.  By 
advocating  this  view  Douglas  would  fully  reassure  those 
of  his  former  supporters  in  Illinois  who  puzzled  them- 
selves on  the  Dred  Scott  case,  but  he  would  infuriate  the 
South.  Lincoln  determined  to  force  Douglas  into  this 
position  by  the  questions  which  he  challenged  him  to 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  149 

answer.  When  he  told  his  friends  of  his  ambition,  they 
all  told  him  he  would  lose  his  election.  "  Gentlemen," 
said  Lincoln,  "I  am  killing  larger  game;  if  Douglas 
answers,  he  can  never  be  President,  and  the  battle  of 
1 860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this."  The  South  was  already 
angry  with  Douglas  for  his  action  over  the  Kansas  Con- 
stitution, but  he  would  have  been  an  invincible  candidate 
for  the  South  to  support  in  1860,  and  it  must  have  told 
in  his  favour  that  his  offence  then  had  been  one  of  plain 
honesty.  But  in  this  fresh  offence  the  Southern  leaders 
had  some  cause  to  accuse  him  of  double  dealing,  and  they 
swore  he  should  not  be  President. 

A  majority  of  the  new  Illinois  Legislature  returned 
Douglas  to  the  Senate.  Lincoln,  however,  had  an  actual 
majority  of  the  votes  of  the  whole  State.  Probably  also 
he  had  gained  a  hold  on  Illinois  for  the  future  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  actual  number  of  votes  then  given 
against  the  popular  Douglas,  and  above  all  he  had  gath- 
ered to  him  a  band  of  supporters  who  had  unbounded 
belief  in  him.  But  his  fall  for  the  moment  was  little 
noticed  or  regretted  outside  Illinois,  or  at  any  rate  in  the 
great  Eastern  States,  to  which  Illinois  was,  so  to  speak, 
the  provinces  and  he  a  provincial  attorney.  His  first 
words  in  the  campaign  had  made  a  stir,  but  the  rest  of 
his  speeches  in  these  long  debates  could  not  be  much 
noticed  at  a  distance.  Douglas  had  won,  and  the  pre- 
sumption was  that  he  had  proved  himself  the  better  man. 
Lincoln  had  performed  what,  apart  from  results,  was  a 
work  of  intellectual  merit  beyond  the  compass  of  any 
American  statesman  since  Hamilton;  moreover,  as  can 
now  be  seen,  there  had  been  great  results;  for,  first,  the 
young  Republican  party  had  not  capitulated  and  collapsed, 
and,  then,  the  great  Democratic  party,  established  in 
power,  in  indifference,  and  in  complicity  with  wrong,  was 
split  clean  in  two.  But  these  were  not  results  that  could 
be  read  yet  awhile  in  election  figures.  Meanwhile  the 
exhausted  Lincoln  reconciled  himself  for  the  moment  to 
failure.  As  a  private  man  he  was  thoroughly  content 
that  he  could  soon  work  off  his  debt  for  his  election 


150  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

expenses,  could  earn  about  £500  a  year,  and  be  secure 
in  the  possession  of  the  little  house  and  the  £2,000  capital 
which  was  "  as  much  as  any  man  ought  to  have."  As  a 
public  man  he  was  sadly  proud  that  he  had  at  least  "  said 
some  words  which  may  bear  fruit  after  I  am  forgotten." 
Persistent  melancholy  and  incurable  elasticity  can  go  to- 
gether, and  they  make  a  very  strong  combination.  The 
tone  of  resignation  had  not  passed  away  from  his  com- 
paratively intimate  letters  when  he  was  writing  little 
notes  to  one  political  acquaintance  and  another  inciting 
them  to  look  forward  to  the  fun  of  the  next  fight. 

4.  John  Brown. 

For  the  next  few  months  the  excitements  of  the  great 
political  world  concern  this  biography  little.  There  was 
strife  between  Davis  and  Douglas  in  the  Senate.  At  a 
meeting  strong  against  slavery,  Seward  regained  courage 
from  the  occasion  and  roused  the  North  with  grave  and 
earnest  words  about  the  "  irrepressible  conflict."  The 
"  underground  railway,"  or  chain  of  friendly  houses  by 
which  fugitive  slaves  were  stealthily  passed  on  to  Canada, 
became  famous.  Methodist  professors  riotously  at- 
tempted to  rescue  an  arrested  fugitive  at  Oberlin.  A 
Southern  grand  jury  threw  out  the  bill  of  indictment 
against  a  slave-trading  crew  caught  red-handed.  In  Cali- 
fornia Democrats  belonging  to  what  was  nicknamed 
"  the  chivalry  "  forced  upon  Senator  Broderick,  a  literally 
democratic  Irishman  and  the  bravest  of  the  Democrats 
who  stood  out  for  fair  treatment  to  Kansas,  a  duel  in 
which  he  might  fairly  be  said  to  have  been  murdered. 
The  one  event  which  demands  more  than  allusion  was 
the  raid  and  the  death  of  John  Brown. 

John  Brown,  in  whom  Puritan  religion,  as  strict  as 
that  of  his  ancestors  on  the  Mayflower,  put  forth  gentler 
beauties  of  character  than  his  sanguinary  mission  may 
suggest,  had  been  somewhat  of  a  failure  as  a  scientific 
farmer,  but  as  a  leader  of  fighting  men  in  desperate  ad- 
venture only  such  men  as  Drake  or  Garibaldi  seem  to 
have  excelled  him.  More  particularly  in  the  commotions 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  151 

in  Kansas  he  had  led  forays,  slain  ruthlessly,  witnessed 
dry-eyed  the  deaths  of  several  of  his  tall,  strong  sons, 
and  as  a  rule  earned  success  by  cool  judgment — all,  as 
he  was  absolutely  sure,  at  the  clear  call  of  God.  In 
October,  1859 — how  and  with  whose  help  the  stroke  was 
prepared  seems  to  be  a  question  of  some  mystery — John 
Brown,  gathering  a  little  band  of  Abolitionists  and 
negroes,  invaded  the  slave  States  and  seized  the  United 
States  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry  in  Virginia.  In  the 
details,  which  do  not  matter,  of  this  tiny  campaign,  John 
Brown  seems,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  to  have  blun- 
dered badly.  This  was  the  only  thing  that  lay  upon  his 
conscience  towards  the  last.  What  manner  of  success 
he  can  have  expected  does  not  appear;  most  likely  he 
had  neither  care  nor  definite  expectation  as  to  the  result. 
The  United  States  troops  under  Robert  Lee,  soon  to  be 
famous,  of  course  overcame  him  quickly.  One  of  his 
prisoners  describes  how  he  held  out  to  the  last;  a  dead 
son  beside  him;  one  hand  on  the  pulse  of  a  dying  son,  his 
rifle  in  the  other.  He  was  captured,  desperately  wounded. 
Southerners  could  not  believe  the  fact  that  Brown  had 
not  contemplated  some  hideous  uprising  of  slaves  against 
their  wives  and  children,  but  he  only  wished  to  conquer 
them  with  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon,  quietly 
freeing  slaves  as  he  went.  So  naturally  there  was  talk 
of  lynching,  but  the  Virginian  gentlemen  concerned  would 
not  have  that.  Governor  Wise,  of  Virginia,  had  some 
talk  with  him  and  justified  his  own  high  character  rather 
than  Brown's  by  the  estimate  he  gave  of  him  in  a  speech 
at  Richmond.  Brown  was  hanged.  "  Stonewall  "  Jack- 
son, a  brother  fanatic,  if  that  is  the  word,  felt  the  spectacle 
"  awful,"  as  he  never  felt  slaughter  in  battle,  and  "  put 
up  a  prayer  that  if  possible  Brown  might  be  saved."  "  So 
perish  all  foes  of  the  human  race,"  said  the  officer  com- 
manding on  the  occasion,  and  the  South  generally  felt 
the  like. 

A  little  before  his  death  Brown  was  asked:  "  How  do 
you  justify  your  acts?  "  He  said:  "  I  think,  my  friend, 
you  are  guilty  of  a  great  wrong  against  God  and  humanity 


152  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

— I  say  it  without  wishing  to  be  offensive — and  it  would 
be  perfectly  right  for  any  one  to  interfere  with  you  so  far 
as  to  free  those  you  wilfully  and  wickedly  hold  in  bondage. 
I  think  I  did  right,  and  that  others  will  do  right  who 
interfere  with  you  at  any  time  and  at  all  times."  In  a 
conversation  still  later,  he  is  reported  to  have  concluded: 
u  I  wish  to  say  furthermore  that  you  had  better — all  you 
people  at  the  South — prepare  yourselves  for  a  settlement 
of  this  question,  that  must  come  up  for  settlement  sooner 
than  you  are  prepared  for  it.  You  may  dispose  of  me 
very  easily.  I  am  nearly  disposed  of  now.  But  this  ques- 
tion is  still  to  be  settled — this  negro  question  I  mean. 
The  end  of  that  is  not  yet."  To  a  friend  he  wrote  that 
he  rejoiced  like  Paul  because  he  knew  like  Paul  that  "  if 
they  killed  him,  it  would  greatly  advance  the  cause  of 
Christ." 

Lincoln,  who  regarded  lawlessness  and  slavery  as  twin 
evils,  could  only  say  of  John  Brown's  raid:  "  That  affair, 
in  its  philosophy,  corresponds  with  the  many  attempts 
related  in  history  at  the  assassination  of  kings  and  em- 
perors. An  enthusiast  broods  over  the  oppression  of  a 
people  till  he  fancies  himself  commissioned  by  Heaven 
to  liberate  them.  He  ventures  the  attempt,  which  ends 
in  little  else  than  his  own  execution.  Orsini's  attempt  on 
Louis  Napoleon  and  John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's 
Ferry  were,  in  their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same." 
Seward,  it  must  be  recorded,  spoke  far  more  sympa- 
thetically of  him  than  Lincoln;  and  far  more  justly,  for 
there  is  a  flaw  somewhere  in  this  example,  as  his  chief 
biographer  regards  it,  of  "  Mr.  Lincoln's  common-sense 
judgment."  John  Brown  had  at  least  left  to  every 
healthy-minded  Northern  boy  a  memory  worth  much  in 
the  coming  years  of  war  and,  one  hopes,  ever  after.  He 
had  well  deserved  to  be  the  subject  of  a  song  which,  what- 
ever may  be  its  technical  merits  as  literature,  does  stir. 
Emerson  took  the  same  view  of  him  as  the  song  writer, 
and  Victor  Hugo  suggested  as  an  epitaph  for  him:  "  Pro 
Christo  sicut  Christus."  A  calmer  poet,  Longfellow, 
wrote  in  his  diary  on  Friday,  December  2,  1859,  the  day 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  153 

when  Brown  was  hanged:  "  This  will  be  a  great  day  in 
our  history,  the  date  of  a  new  revolution,  quite  as  much 
needed  as  the  old  one.  Even  now,  as  I  write,  they  are 
leading  old  John  Brown  to  execution  in  Virginia  for 
attempting  to  rescue  slaves.  This  is  sowing  the  wind  to 
reap  the  whirlwind,  which  will  soon  come." 

Any  one  who  is  interested  in  Lincoln  is  almost  forced 
to  linger  over  the  contrasting  though  slighter  character 
who  crossed  the  stage  just  before  he  suddenly  took  the 
principal  part  upon  it.  Men  like  John  Brown  may  be 
fitly  ranked  with  the  equally  rare  men  who,  steering  a 
very  different  course,  have  consistently  acted  out  the 
principles  of  the  Quakers,  constraining  no  man  whether 
by  violence  or  by  law,  yet  going  into  the  thick  of  life 
prepared  at  all  times  to  risk  all.  All  such  men  are  ab- 
normal in  the  sense  that  most  men  literally  could  not  put 
life  through  on  any  similar  plan  and  would  be  wrong  and 
foolish  to  try.  The  reason  is  that  most  men  have  a  wider 
range  of  sympathy  and  of  intellect  than  they.  But  the 
common  sense  of  most  of  us  revolts  from  any  attitude  of 
condemnation  or  condescension  towards  them;  for  they 
are  more  disinterested  than  most  of  us,  more  single- 
minded,  and  in  their  own  field  often  more  successful. 
With  a  very  clear  conscience  we  refuse  to  take  example 
from  these  men  whose  very  defects  have  operated  in  them 
as  a  special  call;  but  undoubtedly  most  of  us  regard  them 
with  a  warmth  of  sympathy  which  we  are  slow  to  accord 
to  safer  guides.  We  turn  now  from  John  Brown,  who 
saw  in  slavery  a  great  oppression,  and  was  very  angry,  and 
went  ahead  slaying  the  nearest  oppressor  and  liberating 
— for  some  days  at  least — the  nearest  slave,  to  a  patient 
being,  who,  long  ago  in  his  youth,  had  boiled  with  anger 
against  slavery,  but  whose  whole  soul  now  expressed  itself 
in  a  policy  of  deadly  moderation  towards  it:  "  Let  us  put 
back  slavery  where  the  fathers  placed  it,  and  there  let 
it  rest  in  peace."  We  are  to  study  how  he  acted  when 
in  power.  In  almost  every  department  of  policy  we  shall 
see  him  watching  and  waiting  while  blood  flows,  suspend- 
ing judgment,  temporising,  making  trial  of  this  expedient 


154  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  of  that,  adopting  in  the  end,  quite  unthanked,  the 
measure  of  which  most  men  will  say,  when  it  succeeds, 
"  That  is  what  we  always  said  should  be  done."    Above 
all,  in  that  point  of  policy  which  most  interests  us,  we 
shall  witness  the  long  postponement  of  the  blow  that 
killed  negro   slavery,  the   steady  subordination  of  this 
particular  issue  to  what  will  not  at  once  appeal  to  us  as  a 
larger  and  a  higher  issue.    All  this  provoked  at  the  time 
in  many  excellent  and  clever  men  dissatisfaction  and  deep 
suspicion;  they  longed  for  a  leader  whose  heart  visibly 
glowed  with  a  sacred  passion;  they  attributed  his  patience, 
the  one  quality  of  greatness  which  after  a  while  everybody 
might  have  discerned  in  him,  not  to  a  self-mastery  which 
almost  passed  belief,  but  to  a  tepid  disposition  and  a 
mediocre  if  not  a  low  level  of  desire.    We  who  read  of 
him  to-day  shall  not  escape  our  moments  of  lively  sym- 
pathy with  these  grumblers  of  the  time;  we  shall  wish 
that  this  man  could  ever  plunge,  that  he  could  ever  see 
red,  ever  commit  some  passionate  injustice;  we  shall  sus- 
pect him  of  being,  in  the  phrase  of  a  great  philosopher, 
"  a  disgustingly  well-regulated  person,"  lacking  that  in- 
definable quality  akin  to  the  honest  passions  of  us  ordinary 
men,  but  deeper  and  stronger,  which  alone  could  compel 
and  could  reward  any  true  reverence  for  his  memory. 
These   moments   will   recur  but  they   cannot  last.     A 
thousand  little  things,  apparent  on  the  surface  but  deeply 
significant;  almost  every  trivial  anecdote  of  his  boyhood, 
his  prime,  or  his  closing  years;  his  few  recorded  confi- 
dences; his  equally  few  speeches  made  under  strong  emo- 
tion; the  lineaments  of  his  face  described  by  observers 
whom  photography  corroborated;   all  these   absolutely 
forbid  any  conception  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  worthy 
commonplace  person  fortunately  fitted  to  the   require- 
ments of  his  office  at  the  moment,  or  as  merely  a  "  good 
man  "  in  the  negative  and  disparaging  sense  to  which  that 
term  is  often  wrested.    It  is  really  evident  that  there  were 
no  frigid  perfections  about  him  at  all;  indeed  the  weak- 
ness of  some  parts  of  his  conduct  is  so  unlike  what  seems 
to  be  required  of  a  successful  ruler  that  it  is  certain  some 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  155 

almost  unexampled  quality  of  heart  and  mind  went  to  the 
doing  of  what  he  did.  There  is  no  need  to  define  that 
quality.  The  general  wisdom  of  his  statesmanship  will 
perhaps  appear  greater  and  its  not  infrequent  errors  less 
the  more  fully  the  circumstances  are  appreciated.  As  to 
the  man,  perhaps  the  sense  will  grow  upon  us  that  this 
balanced  and  calculating  person,  with  his  finger  on  the 
pulse  of  the  electorate  while  he  cracked  his  uncensored 
jests  with  all  comers,  did  of  set  purpose  drink  and  refill 
and  drink  again  as  full  and  fiery  a  cup  of  sacrifice  as  ever 
was  pressed  to  the  lips  of  hero  or  of  saint. 

5.  The  Election  of  Lincoln. 

Unlooked-for  events  were  now  raising  Lincoln  to  the 
highest  place  which  his  ambition  could  contemplate.  His 
own  action  in  the  months  that  followed  his  defeat  by 
Douglas  cannot  have  contributed  much  to  his  surprising 
elevation,  yet  it  illustrates  well  his  strength  and  his  weak- 
ness, his  real  fitness,  now  and  then  startlingly  revealed, 
for  the  highest  position,  and  the  superficial  unfitness  which 
long  hid  his  capacity  from  many  acute  contemporaries. 

In  December,  1859,  he  made  a  number  of  speeches  in 
Kansas  and  elsewhere  in  the  West,  and  in  February,  1860, 
he  gave  a  memorable  address  in  the  Cooper  Institute  in 
New  York  before  as  consciously  intellectual  an  audience 
as  could  be  collected  in  that  city,  proceeding  afterwards 
to  speak  in  several  cities  of  New  England.  His  appear- 
ance at  the  Cooper  Institute,  in  particular,  was  a  critical 
venture,  and  he  knew  it.  There  was  natural  curiosity 
about  this  untutored  man  from  the  West.  An  exag- 
gerated report  of  his  wit  prepared  the  way  for  probable 
disappointment.  The  surprise  which  awaited  his  hearers 
was  of  a  different  kind;  they  were  prepared  for  a  florid 
Western  eloquence  offensive  to  ears  which  were  used  to  a 
less  spontaneous  turgidity;  they  heard  instead  a  speech 
with  no  ornament  at  all,  whose  only  beauty  was  that  it 
was  true  and  that  the  speaker  felt  it.  The  single  flaw 
in  the  Cooper  Institute  speech  has  already  been  cited,  the 
narrow  view  of  Western  respectability  as  to  John  Brown. 


156  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

For  the  rest,  this  speech,  dry  enough  in  a  sense,  is  an 
incomparably  masterly  statement  of  the  then  political 
situation,  reaching  from  its  far  back  origin  to  the  precise 
and  definite  question  requiring  decision  at  that  moment. 
Mr.  Choate,  who  as  a  young  man  was  present,  set  down 
of  late  years  his  vivid  recollection  of  that  evening.  "  He 
appeared  in  every  sense  of  the  word  like  one  of  the  plain 
people  among  whom  he  loved  to  be  counted.  At  first 
sight  there  was  nothing  impressive  or  imposing  about 
him;  his  clothes  hung  awkwardly  on  his  giant  frame;  his 
face  was  of  a  dark  pallor  without  the  slightest  tinge  of 
colour;  his  seamed  and  rugged  features  bore  the  furrows 
of  hardship  and  struggle;  his  deep-set  eyes  looked  sad 
and  anxious ;  his  countenance  in  repose  gave  little  evidence 
of  the  brilliant  power  which  raised  him  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest  station  among  his  countrymen;  as  he  talked 
to  me  before  the  meeting  he  seemed  ill  at  ease."  We 
know,  as  a  fact,  that  among  his  causes  of  apprehension, 
he  was  for  the  first  time  painfully  conscious  of  those 
clothes.  "  When  he  spoke,"  proceeds  Mr.  Choate,  "  he 
was  transformed;  his  eye  kindled,  his  voice  rang,  his  face 
shone  and  seemed  to  light  up  the  whole  assembly.  For 
an  hour  and  a  half  he  held  his  audience  in  the  hollow  of 
his  hand.  His  style  of  speech  and  manner  of  delivery 
were  severely  simple.  What  Lowell  called  '  the  grand 
simplicities  of  the  Bible,'  with  which  he  was  so  familiar, 
were  reflected  in  his  discourse.  ...  It  was  marvellous 
to  see  how  this  untutored  man,  by  mere  self-discipline  and 
the  chastening  of  his  own  spirit,  had  outgrown  all  mere- 
tricious arts,  and  found  his  way  to  the  grandeur  and 
strength  of  absolute  simplicity." 

The  newspapers  of  the  day  after  this  speech  confirm 
these  reverent  reminiscences.  On  this,  his  first  introduc- 
tion to  the  cultivated  world  of  the  East,  Lincoln's  audience 
were  at  the  moment  and  for  the  moment  conscious  of 
the  power  which  he  revealed.  The  Cooper  Institute 
speech  takes  the  plain  principle  that  slavery  is  wrong,  and 
draws  the  plain  inference  that  it  is  idle  to  seek  for  com- 
mon ground  with  men  who  say  it  is  right.  Strange  but 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  157 

tragically  frequent  examples  show  how  rare  it  is  for 
statesmen  in  times  of  crisis  to  grasp  the  essential  truth 
so  simply.  It  is  creditable  to  the  leading  men  of  New 
York  that  they  recognised  a  speech  which  just  at  that 
time  urged  this  plain  thing  in  sufficiently  plain  language 
as  a  very  great  speech,  and  had  an  inkling  of  great  and 
simple  qualities  in  the  man  who  made  it.  It  is  not 
specially  discreditable  that  very  soon  and  for  a  long  while 
part  of  them,  or  of  those  who  were  influenced  by  their 
report,  reverted  to  their  former  prejudices  in  regard  to 
Lincoln.  When  they  saw  him  thrust  by  election  managers 
into  the  Presidency,  very  few  indeed  of  what  might 
be  called  the  better  sort  believed,  or  could  easily  learn, 
that  his  great  qualities  were  great  enough  to  compensate 
easily  for  the  many  things  he  lacked.  This  specially 
grotesque  specimen  of  the  wild  West  was  soon  seen  not 
to  be  of  the  charlatan  type;  as  a  natural  alternative  he 
was  assumed  to  be  something  of  a  simpleton.  Many 
intelligent  men  retained  this  view  of  him  throughout  the 
years  of  his  trial,  and,  only  when  his  triumph  and  tragic 
death  set  going  a  sort  of  Lincoln  myth,  began  to  recollect 
that  "  I  came  to  love  and  trust  him  even  before  I  knew 
him,"  or  the  like.  A  single  speech  like  this  at  the  Cooper 
Institute  might  be  enough  to  show  a  later  time  that 
Lincoln  was  a  man  of  great  intellect,  but  it  could  really 
do  little  to  prepare  men  in  the  East  for  what  they  next 
heard  of  him. 

Already  a  movement  was  afoot  among  his  friends  in 
Illinois  to  secure  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  at 
the  Convention  of  the  Republican  party  which  was  to 
be  held  in  Chicago  in  May.  Before  that  Convention 
could  assemble  it  had  become  fairly  certain  that  who- 
ever might  be  chosen  as  the  Republican  candidate  would 
be  President  of  the  United  States,  and  signs  were  not 
wanting  that  he  would  be  faced  with  grave  peril  to  the 
Union.  For  the  Democratic  party,  which  had  met  in 
Convention  at  Charleston  in  April,  had  proceeded  to 
split  into  two  sections,  Northern  and  Southern.  This 
memorable  Convention  was  a  dignified  assembly  gathered 


i58  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  a  serious  mood  in  a  city  of  some  antiquity  and  social 
charm.  From  the  first,  however,  a  latent  antipathy  be- 
tween the  Northern  and  the  Southern  delegates  made 
itself  felt.  The  Northerners,  predisposed  to  a  certain 
deference  towards  the  South  and  prepared  to  appreciate 
its  graceful  hospitality,  experienced  an  uneasy  sense  that 
they  were  regarded  as  social  inferiors.  Worse  trouble 
than  this  appeared  when  the  Convention  met  for  its  first 
business,  the  framing  of  the  party  platform.  Whether 
the  position  which  Lincoln  had  forced  Douglas  to  take 
up  had  precipitated  this  result  or  not,  dissension  between 
Northern  and  Southern  Democrats  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  had  already  manifested  itself  in  Congress,  and 
in  the  party  Convention  the  division  became  irreparable. 
Douglas,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  started  with  the 
principle  that  slavery  in  the  Territories  formed  a  ques- 
tion for  the  people  of  each  territory  to  decide;  he  had 
felt  bound  to  accept  the  doctrine  underlying  the  Dred 
Scott  judgments,  according  to  which  slavery  was  by  the 
Constitution  lawful  in  all  territories;  pressed  by  Lincoln, 
he  had  tried  to  reconcile  his  original  position  with  this 
doctrine  by  maintaining  that  while  slavery  was  by  the 
Constitution  lawful  in  every  Territory  it  was  nevertheless 
lawful  for  a  Territorial  Legislature  to  make  slave-own- 
ing practically  impossible.  In  framing  a  declaration  of 
the  party  principles  as  to  slavery  the  Southern  delegates 
in  the  Democratic  Convention  aimed  at  meeting  this 
evasion.  With  considerable  show  of  logic  they  asserted, 
in  the  party  platform  which  they  proposed,  not  merely 
the  abstract  rightfulness  and  lawfulness  of  slavery,  but 
the  duty  of  Congress  itself  to  make  any  provision  that 
might  be  necessary  to  protect  it  in  the  Territories.  To 
this  the  Northern  majority  of  the  delegates  could  not 
consent;  they  carried  an  amendment  declaring  merely 
that  they  would  abide  by  any  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  as  to  slavery.  Thereupon  the  delegates,  not  indeed 
of  the  whole  South  but  of  all  the  cotton-growing  States 
except  Georgia,  withdrew  from  the  Convention,  The 
remaining  delegates  were,  under  the  rules  of  the  Con* 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  159 

vention,  too  few  to  select  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency, 
and  the  Convention  adjourned,  to  re-assemble  at  Balti- 
more in  June.  Eventually,  after  attempts  at  reunion  and 
further  dissensions,  two  separate  Democratic  Conven- 
tions at  Baltimore,  a  Northern  and  a  Southern,  nomi- 
nated, as  their  respective  candidates,  Stephen  Douglas, 
the  obvious  choice  with  whom,  if  the  Southerners  had 
cared  to  temporise  further,  a  united  Democratic  party 
could  have  swept  the  polls,  and  John  C.  Breckinridge  of 
Kentucky,  a  gentleman  not  otherwise  known  than  as 
the  standard  bearer  on  this  great  occasion  of  the  un- 
disguised and  unmitigated  claims  of  the  slave  owners. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  American  Democratic  party  for- 
feited power  for  twenty-four  years,  divided  between  the 
consistent  maintenance  of  a  paradox  and  the  adroit  main- 
tenance of  inconsistency.  Another  party  in  this  election 
demands  a  moment's  notice.  A  Convention  of  delegates, 
claiming  to  represent  the  old  Whigs,  met  also  at  Balti- 
more and  declared  merely  that  it  stood  for  "  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  country,  the  union  of  the  States,  and  the 
enforcement  of  the  laws."  They  nominated  for  the 
Presidency  John  Bell  of  Tennessee,  and  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  Edward  Everett.  This  latter  gentleman  was 
afterwards  chosen  as  the  orator  of  the  day  at  the  cere- 
mony on  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg  when  Lincoln's 
most  famous  speech  was  spoken.  He  was  a  travelled  man 
and  a  scholar;  he  was  Secretary  of  State  for  a  little  while 
under  Fillmore,  and  dealt  honestly  and  firmly  with  the 
then  troublous  question  of  Cuba.  His  orations  deserve 
to  be  looked  at,  for  they  are  favourable  examples  of  the 
eloquence  which  American  taste  applauded,  and  as  such 
they  help  to  show  how  original  Lincoln  was  in  the  simpler 
beauty  of  his  own  simpler  diction.  In  justice  to  the 
Whigs,  let  it  be  noted  that  they  declared  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Union,  committing  themselves  with  de- 
cision on  the  question  of  the  morrow;  but  it  was  a  singular 
platform  that  resolutely  and  totally  ignored  the  only 
issue  of  the  day.  Few  politicians  can  really  afford  to 
despise  either  this  conspicuously  foolish  attempt  to  over- 


160  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

come  a  difficulty  by  shutting  one's  eyes  to  it,  or  the  more 
plausible  proposal  of  the  Northern  Democrats  to  con- 
tinue temporising  with  a  movement  for  slavery  in  which 
they  were  neither  bold  enough  nor  corrupted  enough 
to  join.  The  consequences,  now  known  to  us,  of  a  de- 
termined stand  against  the  advance  of  slavery  were  in- 
stinctively foreseen  by  these  men,  and  they  cannot  be 
blamed  for  shrinking  from  them.  Yet  the  historian  now, 
knowing  that  those  consequences  exceeded  in  terror  all 
that  could  have  been  foreseen,  can  only  agree  with  the 
judgment  expressed  by  Lincoln  in  one  of  his  Kansas 
speeches :  "  We  want  and  must  have  a  national  policy  as 
to  slavery  which  deals  with  it  as  being  a  wrong.  Who- 
ever would  prevent  slavery  becoming  national  and  per- 
petual yields  all  when  he  yields  to  a  policy  which  treats 
it  either  as  being  right,  or  as  being  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference." The  Republican  party  had  been  founded  upon 
just  this  opinion.  Electoral  victory  was  now  being  pre- 
pared for  it,  not  because  a  majority  was  likely  yet  to  take 
so  resolute  a  view,  but  because  its  effective  opponents 
were  divided  between  those  who  had  gone  the  length 
of  calling  slavery  right  and  those  who  strove  to  treat 
it  as  indifferent.  The  fate  of  America  may  be  said  to 
have  depended  in  the  early  months  of  1860  on  whether 
the  nominee  of  the  Republican  party  was  a  man  who 
would  maintain  its  principles  with  irresolution,  or  with 
obstinacy,  or  with  firm  moderation. 

When  it  had  first  been  suggested  to  Lincoln  in  the 
course  of  1859  that  he  might  be  that  nominee  he  said, 
"  I  do  not  think  myself  fit  for  the  Presidency."  This 
was  probably  his  sincere  opinion  at  the  moment,  though 
perhaps  the  moment  was  one  of  dejection.  In  any  case 
his  opinion  soon  changed,  and  though  it  is  not  clear 
whether  he  encouraged  his  friends  to  bring  his  name 
forward,  we  know  in  a  general  way  that  when  they 
decided  to  do  so  he  used  every  effort  of  his  own  to  help 
them.  We  must  accept  without  reserve  Herndon's 
reiterated  assertion  that  Lincoln  was  intensely  ambitious; 
and,  if  ambition  means  the  eager  desire  for  great  oppor- 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  161 

tunities,  the  depreciation  of  it,  which  has  long  been  a 
commonplace  of  literature,  and  which  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  Epicureans,  is  a  piece  of  cant  which  ought 
to  be  withdrawn  from  currency,  and  ambition,  commen- 
surate with  the  powers  which  each  man  can  discover  in 
himself,  should  be  frankly  recognised  as  a  part  of 
Christian  duty.  In  judging  him  to  be  the  best  man  for 
the  Presidency,  Lincoln's  Illinois  friends  and  he  himself 
formed  a  very  sensible  judgment,  but  they  did  so  in 
flagrant  contradiction  to  many  superficial  appearances. 
This  candidate  for  the  chief  magistracy  at  a  critical  time 
of  one  of  the  great  nations  of  the  world  had  never  ad- 
ministered any  concern  much  larger  than  that  post  office 
that  he  once  "  carried  around  in  his  hat."  Of  the  several 
other  gentlemen  whose  names  were  before  the  party  there 
was  none  who  might  not  seem  greatly  to  surpass  him  in 
experience  of  affairs.  To  one  of  them,  Seward,  the  nomi- 
nation seemed  to  belong  almost  of  right.  Chase  and 
Seward  both  were  known  and  dignified  figures  in  that 
great  assembly  the  Senate.  Chase  was  of  proved  recti- 
tude and  courage,  Seward  of  proved  and  very  consider- 
able ability.  Chase  had  been  Governor  of  Ohio,  Seward 
of  New  York  State;  and  the  position  of  Governor  in  a 
State — a  State  it  must  be  remembered  is  independent  in 
almost  the  whole  of  what  we  call  domestic  politics — is 
strictly  analogous  to  the  position  of  President  in  the 
Union,  and,  especially  in  a  great  State,  is  the  best  train- 
ing ground  for  the  Presidency.  But  beyond  this,  Seward, 
between  whom  and  Lincoln  the  real  contest  lay,  had  for 
some  time  filled  a  recognised  though  unofficial  position 
as  the  leader  of  his  party.  He  had  failed,  as  has  been 
seen  in  his  dealings  with  Douglas,  in  stern  insistence  upon 
principle,  but  the  failure  was  due  rather  to  his  sanguine 
and  hopeful  temper  than  to  lack  of  courage.  On  the 
whole  from  the  time  when  he  first  stood  up  against 
Webster  in  the  discussions  of  1850,  when  Lincoln  was 
both  silent  and  obscure,  he  had  earned  his  position  well. 
Hereafter,  as  Lincoln's  subordinate,  he  was  to  do  his 
country  first-rate  service,  and  to  earn  a  pure  fame  as 


162  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  most  generously  loyal  subordinate  to  a  chief  whom  he 
had  thought  himself  fit  to  command.  We  happen  to  have 
ample  means  of  estimating  now  all  Lincoln's  Republican 
competitors;  we  know  that  none  of  the  rest  were  equal 
to  Seward;  and  we  know  that  Seward  himself,  if  he  had 
had  his  way,  would  have  brought  the  common  cause  to 
ruin.  Looking  back  now  at  the  comparison  which 
Lincoln,  when  he  entered  into  the  contest,  must  have 
drawn  between  himself  and  Seward — for  of  the  rest  we 
need  not  take  account — we  can  see  that  to  himself  at 
least  and  some  few  in  Illinois  he  had  now  proved  his 
capacities,  and  that  in  Seward's  public  record,  more  espe- 
cially in  his  attitude  towards  Douglas,  he  had  the  means 
of  measuring  Seward.  In  spite  of  the  far  greater  ex- 
perience of  the  latter  he  may  have  thought  himself  to  be 
his  superior  in  that  indefinable  thing — the  sheer  strength 
of  a  man.  Not  only  may  he  have  thought  this;  he  must 
have  known  it.  He  had  shown  his  grasp  of  the  essential 
facts  when  he  forced  the  Republican  party  to  do  battle 
with  Douglas  and  the  party  of  indifference;  he  showed 
the  same  now  when,  after  long  years  of  patience  and 
self-discipline,  he  pushed  himself  into  Seward's  place  as 
the  Republican  leader. 

All  the  same,  what  little  we  know  of  the  methods  by 
which  he  now  helped  his  own  promotion  suggests  that 
the  people  who  then  and  long  after  set  him  down  as  a 
second-rate  person  may  have  had  a  good  deal  to  go 
upon.  A  kind  friend  has  produced  a  letter  which  he 
wrote  in  March,  1860,  to  a  Kansas  gentleman  who 
desired  to  be  a  delegate  to  the  Republican  Convention, 
and  who  offered,  upon  condition,  to  persuade  his  fellow 
delegates  from  Kansas  to  support  Lincoln.  Here  is  the 
letter:  "As  to  your  kind  wishes  for  myself,  allow  me 
to  say  I  cannot  enter  the  ring  on  the  money  basis — first 
because  in  the  main  it  is  wrong;  and  secondly  I  have  not 
and  cannot  get  the  money.  I  say  in  the  main  the  use 
of  money  is  wrong;  but  for  certain  objects  in  a  political 
contest  the  use  of  some  is  both  right  and  indispensable. 
With  me,  as  with  yourself,  this  long  struggle  has  been  one 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  163 

of  great  pecuniary  loss.  I  now  distinctly  say  this:  If  you 
shall  be  appointed  a  delegate  to  Chicago  I  will  furnish 
one  hundred  dollars  to  bear  the  expenses  of  the  trip." 
The  Kansas  gentleman  failed  to  obtain  the  support  of  the 
Kansas  delegates  as  a  body  for  Lincoln.  Lincoln  none 
the  less  held  to  his  promise  of  a  hundred  dollars  if  the 
man  came  to  Chicago;  and,  having,  we  are  assured,  much 
confidence  in  him,  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of  ap- 
pointing him  to  a  lucrative  office,  besides  consult- 
ing him  as  to  other  appointments  in  Kansas.  This 
is  all  that  we  know  of  the  affair,  but  our  informant 
presents  it  as  one  of  a  number  of  instances  in  which 
Lincoln  good-naturedly  trusted  a  man  too  soon,  and  ob- 
stinately clung  to  his  mistake.  As  to  the  appointment, 
the  man  had  evidently  begun  by  soliciting  money  in  a 
way  which  would  have  marked  him  to  most  of  us  as  a 
somewhat  unsuitable  candidate  for  any  important  post; 
and  the  payment  of  the  hundred  dollars  plainly  trans- 
gresses a  code  both  of  honour  and  of  prudence  which 
most  politicians  will  recognise  and  which  should  not  need 
definition.  To  say,  as  Lincoln  probably  said  to  himself, 
that  there  is  nothing  intrinsically  wrong  in  a  moderate 
payment  for  expenses  to  a  fellow  worker  in  a  public  cause, 
whom  you  believe  to  have  sacrificed  much,  is  to  ignore 
the  point,  indeed  several  points.  Lincoln,  hungry  now 
for  some  success  in  his  own  unrewarded  career,  was 
tempted  to  a  small  manoeuvre  by  which  he  might  pick  up 
a  little  support;  he  was  at  the  same  time  tempted,  no  less, 
to  act  generously  (according  to  his  means)  towards  a 
man  who,  he  readily  believed,  had  made  sacrifices  like 
his  own.  He  was  not  the  man  to  stand  against  this  double 
temptation. 

Petty  lapses  of  this  order,  especially  when  the  delin- 
quent may  be  seen  to  hesitate  and  excuse  himself,  are 
more  irritating  than  many  larger  and  more  brazen  of- 
fences, for  they  give  us  the  sense  of  not  knowing  where 
we  are.  When  they  are  committed  by  a  man  of  seemingly 
strong  and  high  character,  it  is  well  to  ask  just  what 
they  signify.  Some  of  the  shrewdest  observers  of  Lincoln, 


164  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

friendly  and  unfriendly,  concur  in  their  description  of 
the  weaknesses  of  which  this  incident  may  serve  as  the 
example,  weaknesses  partly  belonging  to  his  temperament, 
but  partly  such  as  a  man  risen  from  poverty,  with  little 
variety  of  experience  and  with  no  background  of  home 
training,  stands  small  chance  of  escaping.  For  one  thing 
his  judgment  of  men  and  how  to  treat  them  was  as  bad  in 
some  ways  as  it  was  good  in  others.  His  own  sure  grasp 
of  the  largest  and  commonest  things  in  life,  and  his  sober 
and  measured  trust  in  human  nature  as  a  whole,  gave  him 
a  rare  knowledge  of  the  mind  of  the  people  in  the  mass. 
So,  too,  when  he  had  known  a  man  long,  or  been  with 
him  or  against  him  in  important  transactions,  he  some- 
times developed  great  insight  and  sureness  of  touch;  and, 
when  the  man  was  at  bottom  trustworthy,  his  robust  con- 
fidence in  him  was  sometimes  of  great  public  service.  But 
he  had  no  gift  of  rapid  perception  and  no  instinctive  tact 
or  prudence  in  regard  to  the  very  numerous  and  very 
various  men  with  whom  he  had  slight  dealings  on  which 
he  could  bestow  no  thought.  This  is  common  with  men 
who  have  risen  from  poverty;  if  they  have  not  become 
hard  and  suspicious,  they  are  generally  obtuse  to  the 
minor  indications  by  which  shrewd  men  of  education  know 
the  impostor,  and  they  are  perversely  indulgent  to  little 
meannesses  in  their  fellows  which  they  are  incapable  of 
committing  themselves.  In  Lincoln  this  was  aggravated 
by  an  immense  good-nature — as  he  confessed,  he  could 
hardly  say  "  no  " ; — it  was  an  obstinate  good-nature, 
which  found  a  naughty  pleasure  in  refusing  to  be  cor- 
rected; and  if  it  should  happen  that  the  object  of  his 
weak  benevolence  had  given  him  personal  cause  of  of- 
fence, the  good-nature  became  more  incorrigible  than 
ever.  Moreover,  Lincoln's  strength  was  a  slow  strength, 
shown  most  in  matters  in  which  elementary  principles  of 
right  or  the  concentration  of  intense  thought  guided  him. 
Where  minor  and  more  subtle  principles  of  conduct 
should  have  come  in,  on  questions  which  had  not  come 
within  the  range  of  his  reflection  so  far  and  to  which, 
amidst  his  heavy  duties,  he  could  not  spare  much  cogi« 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  165 

tation,  he  would  not  always  show  acute  perception,  and, 
which  is  far  worse,  he  would  often  show  weakness  of 
will.  The  present  instance  may  be  ever  so  trifling,  yet 
it  does  relate  to  the  indistinct  and  dangerous  borderland 
of  political  corruption.  It  need  arouse  no  very  serious 
suspicions.  Mr.  Herndon,  whose  pertinacious  researches 
unearthed  that  Kansas  gentleman's  correspondence,  and 
who  is  keenly  censorious  of  Lincoln's  fault,  in  the  upshot 
trusts  and  reveres  Lincoln.  And  the  massive  testimony 
of  his  keenest  critics  to  his  honesty  quite  decides  the 
matter.  But  Lincoln  had  lived  in  a  simple  Western  town, 
not  in  one  of  the  already  polluted  great  cities;  he  was  a 
poor  man  himself  and  took  the  fact  that  wealth  was  used 
against  him  as  a  part  of  the  inevitable  drawbacks  of  his 
lot;  and  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  clearly  take  account 
of  the  whole  business  of  corruption  and  jobbery  as  a 
hideous  and  growing  peril  to  America.  It  is  certain  too 
that  he  lacked  the  delicate  perception  of  propriety  in  such 
matters,  or  the  strict  resolution  in  adhering  to  it  on  small 
occasions,  which  might  have  been  possessed  by  a  far  less 
honest  man.  The  severest  criticisms  which  Lincoln  after- 
wards incurred  were  directed  to  the  appointments  which 
he  made;  we  shall  see  hereafter  that  he  had  very  solid 
reasons  for  his  general  conduct  in  such  matters;  but  it 
cannot  be  said  with  conviction  that  he  had  that  horror 
of  appointment  on  other  grounds  than  merit  which  en- 
lightens, though  it  does  not  always  govern,  more  edu- 
cated statesmen.  His  administration  would  have  been 
more  successful,  and  the  legacy  he  left  to  American  public 
life  more  bountiful,  if  his  traditions,  or  the  length  of 
his  day's  work,  had  allowed  him  to  be  more  careful  in 
these  things.  As  it  is  he  was  not  commended  to  the 
people  of  America  and  must  not  be  commended  to  us  by 
the  absence  of  defects  as  a  ruler  or  as  a  man,  but  by  the 
qualities  to  which  his  defects  belonged.  An  acute  literary 
man  wrote  of  Lincoln,  when  he  had  been  three  years 
in  office,  these  remarkable  words :  "  You  can't  help  feel- 
ing an  interest  in  him,  a  sympathy  and  a  kind  of  pity; 
feeling,  too,  that  he  has  some  qualities  of  great  value,  yet 


166  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

fearing  that  his  weak  points  may  wreck  him  or  may 
wreck  something.  His  life  seems  a  series  of  wise,  sound 
conclusions,  slowly  reached,  oddly  worked  out,  on  great 
questions  with  constant  failures  in  administration  of  de- 
tail and  dealings  with  individuals."  It  was  evidently  a 
clever  man  who  wrote  this;  he  would  have  been  a  wise 
man  if  he  had  known  that  the  praise  he  was  bestowing  on 
Lincoln  was  immeasurably  greater  than  the  blame. 

So  the  natural  prejudice  of  those  who  welcomed 
Lincoln  as  a  prophet  in  the  Cooper  Institute  but  found 
his  candidature  for  the  Presidency  ridiculous,  was  not 
wholly  without  justification.  His  partisans,  however — 
also  not  unjustly — used  his  humble  origin  for  all  it  was 
worth.  The  Republicans  of  Illinois  were  assembled  at 
Decatur  in  preparation  for  the  Chicago  Convention,  when, 
amid  tumultuous  cheers,  there  marched  in  old  John  Hanks 
and  another  pioneer  bearing  on  their  shoulders  two  long 
fence  rails  labelled:  "Two  rails  from  a  lot  made  by 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  John  Hanks  in  the  Sangamon 
Bottom  in  the  year  1830."  "  Gentlemen,"  said  Lincoln, 
in  response  to  loud  calls,  "  I  suppose  you  want  to  know 
something  about  those  things.  Well,  the  truth  is,  John 
Hanks  and  I  did  make  rails  in  the  Sangamon  Bottom.  I 
don't  know  whether  we  made  those  rails  or  not;  fact  is, 
I  don't  think  they  are  a  credit  to  the  makers.  But  I  do 
know  this:  I  made  rails  then,  and  I  think  I  could  make 
better  ones  than  these  now."  It  is  unnecessary  to  tell  of 
the  part  those  rails  were  to  play  in  the  coming  campaign. 
It  is  a  contemptible  trait  in  books  like  that  able  novel 
"  Democracy,"  that  they  treat  the  sentiment  which  at- 
tached to  the  "  Rail-splitter  "  as  anything  but  honourable. 

The  Republican  Convention  met  at  Chicago  in  circum- 
stances of  far  less  dignity  than  the  Democratic  Conven- 
tion at  Charleston.  Processions  and  brass  bands,  rough 
fellows  collected  by  Lincoln's  managers,  rowdies  imported 
from  New  York  by  Seward's,  filled  the  streets  with  noise; 
and  the  saloon  keepers  did  good  business.  Yet  the  actual 
Convention  consisted  of  grave  men  in  an  earnest  mood. 
Besides  Seward  and  Chase  and  Lincoln,  Messrs.  Cameron 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  167 

of  Pennsylvania  and  Bates  of  Missouri,  of  whom  we  shall 
hear  later,  were  proposed  for  the  Presidency.  So  also 
were  Messrs.  Dayton  and  Collamer,  politicians  of  some 
repute ;  and  McLean,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  had  some  sup- 
porters. The  prevalent  expectation  in  the  States  was  that 
Seward  would  easily  secure  the  nomination,  but  it  very 
soon  appeared  in  the  Convention  that  his  opponents  were 
too  strong  for  that.  Several  ballots  took  place;  there 
were  the  usual  conferences  and  bargainings,  which  prol> 
ably  affected  the  result  but  little;  Lincoln's  managers^ 
especially  Judge  David  Davis,  afterwards  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  were  shrewd  people;  Lincoln  had  written  to  them 
expressly  that  they  could  make  no  bargain  binding  on  him, 
but  when  Cameron  was  clearly  out  of  the  running  they 
did  promise  Cameron's  supporters  a  place  in  Lincoln's 
Cabinet,  and  a  similar  promise  was  made  for  one  Caleb 
Smith.  The  delegates  from  Pennsylvania  went  on  to 
Lincoln;  then  those  of  Ohio;  and  before  long  his  victory 
was  assured.  A  Committee  of  the  Convention,  some  of 
them  sick  at  heart,  was  sent  to  bear  the  invitation  to 
Lincoln.  He  received  them  in  his  little  house  with  a 
simple  dignity  which  one  of  them  has  recorded;  and  as 
they  came  away  one  said,  "  Well,  we  might  have  chosen  a 
handsomer  article,  but  I  doubt  whether  a  better." 

On  the  whole,  if  we  can  put  aside  the  illusion  which 
besets  us,  who  read  the  preceding  history  if  at  all  in  the 
light  of  Lincoln's  speeches,  and  to  whom  his  competitors 
are  mere  names,  this  was  the  most  surprising  nomination 
ever  made  in  America.  Other  Presidential  candidates 
have  been  born  in  poverty,  but  none  ever  wore  the  scars 
of  poverty  so  plainly ;  others  have  been  intrinsically  more 
obscure,  but  these  have  usually  been  chosen  as  bearing  the 
hall-mark  of  eminent  prosperity  or  gentility.  Lincoln 
had  indeed  at  this  time  displayed  brilliant  ability  in  the 
debates  with  Douglas,  and  he  had  really  shown  a  states- 
man's grasp  of  the  situation  more  than  any  other  Republi- 
can leader.  The  friends  in  Illinois  who  put  him  forward 
— men  like  David  Davis,  who  was  a  man  of  distinction 
himself — did  so  from  a  true  appreciation  of  his  powers. 


168  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

But  this  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  case  with  the 
bulk  of  the  delegates  from  other  States.  The  explana- 
tion given  us  of  their  action  is  curious.  The  choice  was 
not  the  result  of  merit;  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  not 
the  work  of  the  ordinary  wicked  wire-puller,  for  what 
may  be  called  the  machine  was  working  for  Seward.  The 
choice  was  made  by  plain  representative  Americans  who 
set  to  themselves  this  question:  "With  what  candidate 
can  we  beat  Douglas?"  and  who  found  the  answer  in 
the  prevalence  of  a  popular  impression,  concerning 
Lincoln  and  Seward,  which  was  in  fact  wholly  mistaken. 
There  was,  it  happens,  earnest  opposition  to  Seward 
among  some  Eastern  Republicans  on  the  good  ground 
that  he  was  a  clean  man  but  with  doubtful  associates. 
This  opposition  could  not  by  itself  have  defeated  him. 
What  did  defeat  him  was  his  reputation  at  the  moment 
as  a  very  advanced  Republican  who  would  scare  away  the 
support  of  the  weaker  brethren.  He  was,  for  instance, 
the  author  of  the  alarming  phrase  about  "  irrepressible 
conflict,"  and  he  had  spoken  once,  in  a  phrase  that  was 
misinterpreted,  about  "  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitu- 
tion." Lincoln  had  in  action  taken  a  far  stronger  line 
than  Seward;  he  was  also  the  author  of  the  phrase  about 
the  house  divided  against  itself;  but  then,  besides  the  fact 
that  Lincoln  was  well  regarded  just  where  Douglas  was 
most  popular,  Lincoln  was  a  less  noted  man  than  Seward 
and  his  stronger  words  occasioned  less  wide  alarm.  So, 
to  please  those  who  liked  compromise,  the  Convention 
rejected  a  man  who  would  certainly  have  compromised, 
and  chose  one  who  would  give  all  that  moderation 
demanded  and  die  before  he  yielded  one  further  inch. 
Many  Americans  have  been  disposed  to  trace  in  the  rais- 
ing up  of  Lincoln  the  hand  of  a  Providence  protecting 
their  country  in  its  worst  need.  It  would  be  affectation 
to  set  their  idea  altogether  aside;  it  is,  at  any  rate,  a  mem- 
orable incident  in  the  history  of  a  democracy,  permeated 
with  excellent  intentions  but  often  hopelessly  subject  to  in- 
ferior influences,  that  at  this  critical  moment  the  fit  man 
chosen  on  the  very  ground  of  his  supposed  unfitness. 


THE  RISE  OF  LINCOLN  169 

The  result  of  the  contest  between  the  four  Presidential 
candidates  was  rendered  almost  a  foregone  conclusion 
by  the  decision  of  the  Democrats.  Lincoln  in  deference 
to  the  usual  and  seemly  procedure  took  no  part  in  the 
campaign,  nor  do  his  doings  in  the  next  months  concern 
us.  Seward,  to  his  great  honour,  after  privately  ex- 
pressing his  bitter  chagrin  at  the  bestowal  of  what  was 
his  due  upon  "a  little  Illinois  attorney,"  threw  himself 
whole-heartedly  into  the  contest,  and  went  about  making 
admirable  speeches.  On  the  night  of  November  6, 
Lincoln  sat  alone  with  the  operator  in  the  telegraph  box 
at  Springfield,  receiving  as  they  came  in  the  results  of 
the  elections  of  Presidential  electors  in  the  various  States. 
Long  before  the  returns  were  complete  his  knowledge  of 
such  matters  made  him  sure  of  his  return,  and  before 
he  left  that  box  he  had  solved  in  principle,  as  he  after- 
wards declared,  the  first  and  by  no  means  least  important 
problem  of  his  Presidency,  the  choice  of  a  Cabinet. 

The  victory  was  in  one  aspect  far  from  complete.  If 
we  look  not  at  the  votes  in  the  Electoral  College  with 
which  the  formal  choice  of  President  lay,  but  at  the 
popular  votes  by  which  the  electors  were  returned,  we 
shall  see  that  the  new  President  was  elected  by  a  minority 
of  the  American  people.  He  had  a  large  majority  over 
Douglas,  but  if  Douglas  had  received  the  votes  which 
were  given  for  the  Southern  Democrat,  Breckinridge,  he 
would  have  had  a  considerable  majority  over  Lincoln, 
though  the  odd  machinery  of  the  Electoral  College  would 
still  have  kept  him  out  of  the  Presidency.  In  another 
aspect  it  was  a  fatally  significant  victory.  Lincoln's  votes 
were  drawn  only  from  the  Northern  States;  he  carried 
almost  all  the  free  States  and  he  carried  no  others.  For 
the  first  time  in  American  history,  the  united  North  had 
used  its  superior  numbers  to  outvote  the  South.  This 
would  in  any  case  have  caused  great  vexation,  and  the 
personality  of  the  man  chosen  by  the  North  aggravated 
it.  The  election  of  Lincoln  was  greeted  throughout  the 
South  with  a  howl  of  derision. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SECESSION 

I.  The  Case  of  the  South  against  the  Union. 

THE  Republicans  of  the  North  had  given  their  votes 
upon  a  very  clear  issue,  but  probably  few  of  them  had 
fully  realised  how  grave  a  result  would  follow.  Within 
a  few  days  of  the  election  of  Lincoln  the  first  step  in  the 
movement  of  Secession  had  been  taken,  and  before  the 
new  President  entered  upon  his  duties  it  was  plain  that 
either  the  dissatisfied  States  must  be  allowed  to  leave 
the  Union  or  the  Union  must  be  maintained  by  war. 

Englishmen  at  that  time  and  since  have  found  a  diffi- 
culty in  grasping  the  precise  cause  of  the  war  that  fol- 
lowed. Of  those  who  were  inclined  to  sympathise  with 
the  North,  some  regarded  the  war  as  being  simply  about 
slavery,  and,  while  unhesitatingly  opposed  to  slavery, 
wondered  whether  it  was  right  to  make  war  upon  it; 
others,  regarding  it  as  a  war  for  the  Union  and  not 
against  slavery  at  all,  wondered  whether  it  was  right  to 
make  war  for  a  Union  that  could  not  be  peaceably  main- 
tained. Now  it  is  seldom  possible  to  state  the  cause  of  a 
war  quite  candidly  in  a  single  sentence,  because  as  a  rule 
there  are  on  each  side  people  who  concur  in  the  final 
rupture  for  somewhat  different  reasons.  But,  in  this 
case,  forecasting  a  conclusion  which  must  be  examined  in 
some  detail,  we  can  state  the  cause  of  war  in  a  very  few 
sentences.  If  we  ask  first  what  the  South  fought  for,  the 
answer  is:  the  leaders  of  the  South  and  the  great  mass 
of  the  Southern  people  had  a  single  supreme  and  all-em- 
bracing object  in  view,  namely,  to  ensure  the  permanence 
and,  if  need  be,  the  extension  of  the  slave  system;  they 
carried  with  them,  however,  a  certain  number  of  South- 
erners who  were  opposed  or  at  least  averse  to  slavery, 

170 


SECESSION  171 

but  who  thought  that  the  right  of  their  States  to  leave 
the  Union  or  remain  in  it  as  they  chose  must  be  main- 
tained. If  we  ask  what  the  North  fought  for,  the  answer 
is:  A  majority,  by  no  means  overwhelming,  of  the  North- 
ern people  refused  to  purchase  the  adhesion  of  the  South 
by  conniving  at  any  further  extension  of  slavery,  and  an 
overwhelming  majority  refused  to  let  the  South  dissolve 
the  Union  for  slavery  or  for  any  other  cause. 

The  issue  about  slavery,  then,  became  merged  in 
another  issue,  concerning  the  Union,  which  had  so  far 
remained  in  the  background. 

The  first  thing  that  must  be  grasped  about  it  is  the 
total  difference  of  view  which  now  existed  between  North 
and  South  in  regard  to  the  very  nature  of  their  connec- 
tion. The  divergence  had  taken  place  so  completely  and 
in  the  main  so  quietly  that  each  side  now  realised  with 
surprise  and  indignation  that  the  other  held  an  opposite 
opinion.  In  the  North  the  Union  was  regarded  as  consti- 
tuting a  permanent  and  unquestionable  national  unity 
from  which  it  was  flat  rebellion  for  a  State  or  any  other 
combination  of  persons  to  secede.  In  the  South  the  Union 
appeared  merely  as  a  peculiarly  venerable  treaty  of  alli- 
ance, of  which  the  dissolution  would  be  very  painful,  but 
which  left  each  State  a  sovereign  body  with  an  inde- 
feasible right  to  secede  if  in  the  last  resort  it  judged  that 
the  painful  necessity  had  come.  In  a  few  border  States 
there  was  division  and  doubt  on  this  subject,  a  fact  which 
must  have  helped  to  hide  from  each  side  the  true  strength 
of  opinion  on  the  other.  But,  setting  aside  these  border 
States,  there  were  in  the  North  some  who  doubted 
whether  it  was  expedient  to  fight  for  the  Union,  but  none 
of  any  consequence  who  doubted  that  it  was  constitu- 
tionally correct;  and  there  were  in  the  South  men  who 
insisted  that  no  occasion  to  secede  had  arisen,  but  these 
very  men,  when  outvoted  in  their  States,  maintained  most 
passionately  the  absolute  right  of  secession. 

The  two  sides  contended  for  two  contrary  doctrines 
of  constitutional  law.  It  is  natural  when  parties  are 
disputing  over  a  question  of  political  wisdom  and  of 


172  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

moral  right  that  each  should  claim  for  its  contention  if 
possible  the  sanction  of  acknowledged  legal  principle. 
So  it  was  with  the  parties  to  the  English  Civil  War,  and 
the  tendency  to  regard  matters  from  a  legal  point  of 
view  is  to  this  day  deeply  engrained  in  the  mental  habits 
of  America.  But  North  and  South  were  really  divided 
by  something  other  than  legal  opinion,  a  difference  in  the 
objects  to  which  their  feelings  of  loyalty  and  patriotism 
were  directed.  This  difference  found  apt  expression  in 
the  Cabinet  of  President  Buchanan,  who  of  course  re- 
mained in  office  between  the  election  of  Lincoln  in 
November  and  his  inauguration  in  March.  General  Cass 
of  Michigan  had  formerly  stood  for  the  Presidency  with 
the  support  of  the  South,  and  he  held  Cabinet  office  now 
as  a  sympathiser  with  the  South  upon  slavery,  but  he  was 
a  Northerner.  "  I  see  how  it  is,"  he  said  to  two  of  his 
colleagues;  "you  are  a  Virginian,  and  you  are  a  South 
Carolinian;  I  am  not  a  Michigander,  I  am  an  American." 
In  a  former  chapter  the  creation  of  the  Union  and 
the  beginnings  of  a  common  national  life  have  been 
traced  in  outline.  Obstacles  to  the  Union  had  existed 
both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  and,  after  it  had  been 
carried,  the  tendency  to  threaten  disruption  upon  some 
slight  conflict  of  interest  had  shown  itself  in  each.  But 
a  proud  sense  of  single  nationality  had  soon  become 
prevalent  in  both,  and  in  the  North  nothing  whatever  had 
happened  to  set  back  this  growth,  for  the  idea  which 
Lowell  had  once  attributed  to  his  Hosea  Biglow  of  ab- 
juring Union  with  slave  owners  was  a  negligible  force. 
Undivided  allegiance  to  the  Union  was  the  natural  senti- 
ment of  citizens  of  Ohio  or  Wisconsin,  States  created 
by  the  authority  of  the  Union  out  of  the  common  do- 
minion of  the  Union.  It  had  become,  if  anything,  more 
deeply  engrained  in  the  original  States  of  the  North,  for 
their  predominant  occupation  in  commerce  would  tend 
in  this  particular  to  give  them  larger  views.  The  pride 
of  a  Boston  man  in  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts 
was  of  the  same  order  as  his  pride  in  the  city  of  Boston; 
both  were  largely  pride  in  the  part  which  Boston  and 


SECESSION  173 

Massachusetts  had  taken  in  making  the  United  States 
of  America.  Such  a  man  knew  well  that  South  Carolina 
had  once  threatened  secession,  but,  for  that  matter,  the 
so-called  Federalists  of  New  England  had  once  threatened 
it.  The  argument  of  Webster  in  the  case  of  South  Caro- 
lina was  a  classic,  and  was  taken  as  conclusive  on  the 
question  of  legal  right.  The  terser  and  more  resonant 
declaration  of  President  Jackson,  a  Southerner,  and  the 
response  to  it  which  thrilled  all  States,  South  or  North, 
outside  South  Carolina,  had  set  the  seal  to  Webster's 
doctrines.  There  had  been  loud  and  ominous  talk  of 
secession  lately;  it  was  certainly  not  mere  bluster;  North- 
erners in  the  main  were  cautious  politicians  and  had  been 
tempted  to  go  far  to  conciliate  it.  But  if  the  claim  of 
Southern  States  were  put  in  practice,  the  whole  North 
would  now  regard  it  not  as  a  respectable  claim,  but  as 
an  outrage. 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  the  disposition  to  take 
this  view  did  not  depend  upon  advanced  opinions  against 
slavery.  Some  of  the  most  violent  opponents  of  slavery 
would  care  relatively  little  about  the  Constitution  or  the 
Union;  they  would  at  first  hesitate  as  to  whether  a  peace- 
ful separation  between  States  which  felt  so  differently  on 
a  moral  question  like  slavery  was  not  a  more  Christian 
solution  of  their  difference  than  a  fratricidal  war.  On 
the  other  hand,  men  who  cared  little  about  slavery,  and 
would  gladly  have  sacrificed  any  convictions  they  had 
upon  that  matter  for  the  sake  of  the  Union,  were  at  first 
none  the  less  vehement  in  their  anger  at  an  attack  upon 
the  Union.  There  is,  moreover,  a  more  subtle  but  still 
important  point  to  be  observed  in  this  connection.  Demo- 
crats in  the  North  inclined  as  a  party  to  stringent  and 
perhaps  pedantically  legal  views  of  State  rights  as  against 
the  rights  of  the  Union;  but  this  by  no  means  necessarily 
meant  that  they  sympathised  more  than  Republicans  with 
the  claim  to  dissolve  the  Union.  They  laid  emphasis 
on  State  rights  merely  because  they  believed  that  these 
would  be  a  bulwark  against  any  sort  of  government 
tyranny,  and  that  the  large  power  which  was  reserved 


174  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  the  local  or  provincial  authorities  of  the  States  made 
the  government  of  the  nation  as  a  whole  more  truly 
expressive  of  the  will  of  the  whole  people.  They  now 
found  themselves  entangled  (as  we  shall  see)  in  curious 
doubts  as  to  what  the  Federal  Government  might  do  to 
maintain  the  Union,  but  they  had  not  the  faintest  doubt 
that  the  Union  was  meant  to  be  maintained.  The  point 
which  is  now  being  emphasised  must  not  be  misappre- 
hended; differences  of  sentiment  in  regard  to  slavery,  in 
regard  to  State  rights,  in  regard  to  the  authority  of 
Government,  did,  as  the  war  went  on  and  the  price  was 
paid,  gravely  embarrass  the  North;  but  it  was  a  solid 
and  unhesitating  North  which  said  that  the  South  had 
no  right  to  secede. 

Up  to  a  certain  point  the  sense  of  patriotic  pride  in 
the  Union  had  grown  also  in  the  South.  It  was  fostered 
at  first  by  the  predominant  part  which  the  South  played 
in  the  political  life  of  the  country.  But  for  a  generation 
past  the  sense  of  a  separate  interest  of  the  South  had 
been  growing  still  more  vigorously.  The  political  pre- 
dominance of  the  South  had  continued,  but  under  a  stand- 
ing menace  of  downfall  as  the  North  grew  more  populous 
and  the  patriotism  which  it  at  first  encouraged  had  be- 
come perverted  into  an  arrogantly  unconscious  feeling 
that  the  Union  was  an  excellent  thing  on  condition  that  it 
was  subservient  to  the  South.  The  common  interest  of 
the  Southern  States  was  slavery;  and,  when  the  North- 
erners had  become  a  majority  which  might  one  day 
dominate  the  Federal  Government,  this  common  interest 
of  the  slave  States  found  a  weapon  at  hand  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  inherent  sovereignty  of  each  individual  State.  This 
doctrine  of  State  sovereignty  had  come  to  be  held  as 
universally  in  the  South  as  the  strict  Unionist  doctrine 
in  the  North,  and  held  with  as  quiet  and  unshakable  a 
confidence  that  it  could  not  be  questioned.  It  does  not 
seem  at  all  strange  that  the  State,  as  against  the  Union, 
should  have  remained  the  supreme  object  of  loyalty  in 
old  communities  like  those  of  South  Carolina  and  Virginia, 
abounding  as  they  did  in  conservative  influences  which 


SECESSION  175 

were  lacking  in  the  North.  But  this  provincial  loyalty 
was  not  in  the  same  sense  a  natural  growth  in  States  like 
Alabama  or  Mississippi.  These,  no  less  than  Indiana 
and  Illinois,  were  the  creatures  of  the  Federal  Congress, 
set  up  within  the  memory  of  living  men,  with  arbitrary 
boundaries  that  cut  across  any  old  lines  of  division. 
There  was,  in  fact,  no  spontaneous  feeling  of  allegiance 
attaching  to  these  political  units,  and  the  doctrine  of 
their  sovereignty  had  no  use  except  as  a  screen  for  the 
interest  in  slavery  which  the  Southern  States  had  in  com- 
mon. But  Calhoun,  in  a  manner  characteristic  of  his 
peculiar  and  dangerous  type  of  intellect,  had  early  seen 
in  a  view  of  State  sovereignty,  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  obsolete,  the  most  serviceable  weapon  for  the 
joint  interests  of  the  Southern  States.  In  a  society  where 
intellectual  life  was  restricted,  his  ascendency  had  been 
great,  though  his  disciples  had,  reasonably  enough, 
thrown  aside  the  qualifications  which  his  subtle  mind 
had  attached  to  the  right  of  secession.  Thus  in  the 
Southern  States  generally,  even  among  men  most  strongly 
opposed  to  the  actual  proposal  to  secede,  the  real  or 
alleged  constitutional  right  of  a  State  to  secede  if  it  chose 
now  passed  unquestioned  and  was  even  regarded  as  a 
precious  liberty. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  asking  whether  on  this  ques- 
tion of  constitutional  law  the  Northern  opinion  or  the 
Southern  opinion  was  correct.  (The  question  was  indeed 
an  important  question  in  determining  the  proper  course 
of  procedure  for  a  President  when  confronted  with  seces- 
sion, but  it  must  be  protested  that  the  moral  right  and 
political  wisdom  of  neither  party  in  the  war  depended 
mainly,  if  at  all,  upon  this  legal  point.  It  was  a  question 
of  the  construction  which  a  court  of  law  should  put  upon 
a  document  which  was  not  drawn  up  with  any  view  to 
determining  this  point.)  If  we  go  behind  the  Constitu- 
tion, which  was  then  and  is  now  in  force,  to  the  original 
document  of  which  it  took  the  place,  we  shall  find  it  en- 
titled "  Articles  of  Confederation  and  Perpetual  Union," 
but  we  shall  not  find  any  such  provisions  as  men  desirous 


176  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  creating  a  stable  and  permanent  federal  government 
might  have  been  expected  to  frame.  If  we  read  the  actual 
Constitution  we  shall  find  no  word  distinctly  implying 
that  a  State  could  or  could  not  secede.  As  to  the  real 
intention  of  its  chief  authors,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  they  hoped  and  trusted  the  Union  would  prove 
indissoluble,  and  equally  little  doubt  that  they  did 
not  wish  to  obtrude  upon  those  whom  they  asked  to 
enter  into  it  the  thought  that  this  step  would  be  irrev- 
ocable. For  the  view  taken  in  the  South  there  is  one 
really  powerful  argument,  on  which  Jefferson  Davis  in- 
sisted passionately  in  the  argumentative  memoirs  with 
which  he  solaced  himself  in  old  age.  It  is  that  in  several 
of  the  States,  when  the  Constitution  was  accepted,  public 
declarations  were  made  to  the  citizens  of  those  States  by 
their  own  representatives  that  a  State  might  withdraw 
from  the  Union.  But  this  is  far  from  conclusive.  No 
man  gets  rid  of  the  obligation  of  a  bond  by  telling  a 
witness  that  he  does  not  mean  to  be  bound;  the  question 
is  not  what  he  means,  but  what  the  party  with  whom  he 
deals  must  naturally  take  him  to  mean.  Now  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  upon  the  face  of  it  purports 
to  create  a  government  able  to  take  its  place  among  the 
other  governments  of  the  world,  able  if  it  declares  war  to 
wield  the  whole  force  of  its  country  in  that  war,  and  able 
if  it  makes  peace  to  impose  that  peace  upon  all  its  sub 
jects.  This  seems  to  imply  that  the  authority  of  that  gov> 
ernment  over  part  of  the  country  should  be  legally  inde- 
feasible. It  would  have  been  ridiculous  if,  during  a  war 
with  Great  Britain,  States  on  the  Canadian  border  should 
have  had  the  legal  right  to  secede,  and  set  up  a  neutral 
government  with  a  view  to  subsequent  reunion  with  Great 
Britain.  The  sound  legal  view  of  this  matter  would  seem 
to  be :  that  the  doctrine  of  secession  is  so  repugnant  to  the 
primary  intention  with  which  the  national  instrument  of 
government  was  framed  that  it  could  only  have  been 
supported  by  an  express  reservation  of  the  right  to  secede 
in  the  Constitution  itself. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll,  one  of  the  few  British  statesmen 


SECESSION  177 

of  the  time  who  followed  this  struggle  with  intelligent 
interest,  briefly  summed  up  the  question  thus :  "  I  know 
of  no  government  in  the  world  that  could  possibly  have 
admitted  the  right  of  secession  from  its  own  allegiance." 
Oddly  enough,  President  Buchanan,  in  his  Message  to 
Congress  on  December  4,  put  the  same  point  not  less 
forcibly. 

But  to  say — as  in  a  legal  sense  we  may — that  the  South- 
ern States  rebelled  is  not  necessarily  to  say  that  they 
were  wrong.  The  deliberate  endeavour  of  a  people  to 
separate  themselves  from  the  political  sovereignty  under 
which  they  live  and  set  up  a  new  political  community,  in 
which  their  national  life  shall  develop  itself  more  fully 
or  more  securely,  must  always  command  a  certain  respect. 
Whether  it  is  entitled  further  to  the  full  sympathy  and 
to  the  support  or  at  least  acquiescence  of  others  is  a 
question  which  in  particular  cases  involves  considerations 
such  as  cannot  be  foreseen  in  any  abstract  discussion  of 
political  theory.  But,  speaking  very  generally,  it  is  a 
question  in  the  main  of  the  worth  which  we  attribute  on 
the  one  hand  to  the  common  life  to  which  it  is  sought  to 
give  freer  scope,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the  common 
life  which  may  thereby  be  weakened  or  broken  up.  It 
sometimes  seems  to  be  held  that  when  a  decided  majority 
of  the  people  whose  voices  can  be  heard,  in  a  more  or 
less  defined  area,  elect  to  live  for  the  future  under  a  par- 
ticular government,  all  enlightened  men  elsewhere  would 
wish  them  to  have  their  way.  If  any  such  principle  could 
be  accepted  without  qualification,  few  movements  for 
independence  would  ever  have  been  more  completely 
justified  than  the  secession  of  the  Southern  States.  If 
we  set  aside  the  highland  region  of  which  mention  has 
already  been  made,  in  the  six  cotton-growing  States  which 
first  seceded,  and  in  several  of  those  which  followed  as 
soon  as  it  was  clear  that  secession  would  be  resisted,  the 
preponderance  of  opinion  in  favour  of  the  movement 
was  overwhelming.  This  was  not  only  so  among  the 
educated  and  governing  portions  of  society,  which  were 
interested  in  slavery.  While  the  negroes  themselves  were 


178  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

unorganised  and  dumb  and  made  no  stir  for  freedom, 
the  poorer  class  of  white  people,  to  whom  the  institution 
of  slavery  was  in  reality  oppressive,  were  quite  uncon- 
scious of  this;  the  enslavement  of  the  negro  appeared 
to  them  a  tribute  to  their  own  dignity,  and  their  indis- 
criminating  spirit  of  independence  responded  enthusiasti- 
cally to  the  appeal  that  they  should  assert  themselves 
against  the  real  or  fancied  pretensions  of  the  North.  So 
large  a  statement  would  require  some  qualification  if  we 
were  here  concerned  with  the  life  of  a  Southern  leader; 
and  there  was  of  course  a  brief  space,  to  be  dealt  with 
in  this  chapter,  in  which  the  question  of  secession  hung 
in  the  balance,  and  it  is  true  in  this,  as  in  every  case,  that 
the  men  who  gave  the  initial  push  were  few.  But,  broadly 
speaking,  it  is  certain  that  the  movement  for  secession 
was  begun  with  at  least  as  general  an  enthusiasm  and 
maintained  with  at  least  as  loyal  a  devotion  as  any 
national  movement  with  which  it  can  be  compared.  And 
yet  to-day,  just  fifty-one  years  after  the  consummation  of 
its  failure,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  one  soul  among  the 
people  concerned  regrets  that  it  failed. 

English  people  from  that  time  to  this  have  found  th& 
statement  incredible;  but  the  fact  is  that  this  imposing 
movement,  in  which  rich  and  poor,  gentle  and  simple, 
astute  men  of  state  and  pious  clergymen,  went  hand  in 
hand  to  the  verge  of  ruin  and  beyond,  was  undertaken 
simply  and  solely  in  behalf  of  slavery.  Northern  writers 
of  the  time  found  it  so  surprising  that  they  took  refuge 
in  the  theory  of  conspiracy,  alleging  that  a  handful  of 
schemers  succeeded,  by  the  help  of  fictitious  popular 
clamour  and  intimidation  of  their  opponents,  in  launch- 
ing the  South  upon  a  course  to  which  the  real  mind  of 
the  people  was  averse.  Later  and  calmer  historical  survey 
of  the  facts  has  completely  dispelled  this  view;  and  the 
English  suspicion,  that  there  must  have  been  some  cause 
beyond  and  above  slavery  for  desiring  independence, 
never  had  any  facts  to  support  it.  Since  1 830  no  exponent 
of  Southern  views  had  ever  hinted  at  secession  on  any 
other  ground  than  slavery;  every  Southern  leader  de- 


SECESSION  179 

clared  with  undoubted  truth  that  on  every  other  ground 
he  prized  the  Union;  outside  South  Carolina  every  South- 
ern leader  made  an  earnest  attempt  before  he  surrendered 
the  Union  cause  to  secure  the  guarantees  he  thought  suf- 
ficient for  slavery  within  the  Union.  The  Southern  states- 
man (for  the  soldiers  were  not  statesmen)  whose 
character  most  attracts  sympathy  now  was  Alexander 
Stephens,  the  Vice-President  of  the  Southern  Confeder- 
acy, and  though  he  was  the  man  who  persisted  longest 
in  the  view  that  slavery  could  be  adequately  secured  with- 
out secession,  he  was  none  the  less  entitled  to  speak  for 
the  South  in  his  remarkable  words  on  the  Constitution 
adopted  by  the  Southern  Confederacy:  "The  new  Con- 
stitution has  put  at  rest  for  ever  all  the  agitating  ques- 
tions relating  to  our  peculiar  institution,  African  slavery. 
This  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  late  rupture  and 
present  revolution.  The  prevailing  ideas  entertained  by 
Jefferson  and  most  of  the  leading  statesmen  at  the  time  of 
the  old  Constitution  were  that  the  enslavement  of  the 
African  was  wrong  in  principle  socially,  morally,  and 
politically.  Our  new  government  is  founded  upon  ex- 
actly the  opposite  idea;  its  foundations  are  laid,  its  corner 
stone  rests,  upon  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not  the 
equal  of  the  white  man;  that  slavery — subordination  to 
the  white  man — is  his  natural  and  normal  condition. 
This,  our  new  government,  is  the  first  in  the  history  of 
the  world  based  upon  this  great  physical,  philosophical, 
and  moral  truth.  The  great  objects  of  humanity  are  best 
attained  when  there  is  conformity  to  the  Creator's  laws 
and  decrees."  Equally  explicit  and  void  of  shame  was 
the  Convention  of  the  State  of  Mississippi.  "  Our  posi- 
tion," they  declared,  "  is  thoroughly  identified  with 
slavery." 

It  is  common  to  reproach  the  Southern  leaders  with 
reckless  folly.  They  tried  to  destroy  the  Union,  which 
they  really  valued,  for  the  sake  of  slavery,  which  they 
valued  more;  they  in  fact  destroyed  slavery;  and  they 
did  this,  it  is  said,  in  alarm  at  an  imaginary  danger.  This 
is  not  a  true  ground  of  reproach  to  them.  It  is  true 


i8o  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  the  danger  to  slavery  from  the  election  of  Lincoln 
wus  not  immediately  pressing.  He  neither  would  have 
done  nor  could  have  done  more  than  to  prevent  during 
Jus  four  years  of  office  any  new  acquisition  of  territory  in 
the  slave-holding  interest,  and  to  impose  his  veto  on  any 
Bill  extending  slavery  within  the  existing  territory  of  the 
Union.  His  successor  after  four  years  might  or  might 
not  have  been  like-minded.  He  did  not  seem  to  stand  for 
any  overwhelming  force  in  American  politics;  there  was 
a  majority  opposed  to  him  in  both  Houses  of  Congress; 
a  great  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which  might  have 
an  important  part  to  play,  held  views  of  the  Constitution 
opposed  to  his;  he  had  been  elected  by  a  minority  only 
of  the  whole  American  people.  Why  could  not  the 
Southern  States  have  sat  still,  secure  that  no  great  harm 
would  happen  to  their  institution  for  the  present,  and 
hoping  that  their  former  ascendency  would  come  back 
to  them  with  the  changing  fortunes  of  party  strife  ?  This 
is  an  argument  which  might  be  expected  to  have  weighed 
with  Southern  statesmen  if  each  of  them  had  been  anxious 
merely  to  keep  up  the  value  of  his  own  slave  property 
for  his  own  lifetime,  but  this  was  far  from  being  their 
case.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  put  ourselves  at  the  point  of 
view  of  men  who  could  sincerely  speak  of  their  property 
in  negroes  as  theirs  by  the  "  decree  of  the  Creator  ";  but 
it  is  certain  that  within  the  last  two  generations  trouble 
of  mind  as  to  the  rightfulness  of  slavery  had  died  out 
in  a  large  part  of  the  South;  the  typical  Southern  leader 
valued  the  peculiar  form  of  society  under  which  he  lived 
and  wished  to  hand  it  on  intact  to  his  children's  children. 
If  their  preposterous  principle  be  granted,  the  most  ex- 
treme among  them  deserve  the  credit  of  statesmanlike 
insight  for  having  seen,  the  moment  that  Lincoln  was 
elected,  that  they  must  strike  for  their  institution  now  if 
they  wished  it  to  endure.  The  Convention  of  South 
Carolina  justly  observed  that  the  majority  in  the  North 
had  voted  that  slavery  was  sinful;  they  had  done  little 
more  than  express  this  abstract  opinion,  but  they  had 
done  all  that.  Lincoln's  administration  might  have  done 


SECESSION  181 

apparently  little,  and  after  it  the  pendulum  would  prob- 
ably have  swung  back.  But  the  much-talked-of  swing  of 
the  pendulum  is  the  most  delusive  of  political  phenomena; 
America  was  never  going  to  return  to  where  it  was  before 
this  first  explicit  national  assertion  of  the  wrongfulness 
of  slavery  had  been  made.  It  would  have  been  hard  to 
forecast  how  the  end  would  come,  or  how  soon;  but  the 
end  was  certain  if  the  Southern  States  had  elected  to  re- 
main the  countrymen  of  a  people  who  were  coming  to 
regard  their  fundamental  institution  with  growing  rep- 
robation. Lincoln  had  said,  "  This  government  cannot 
endure  permanently,  half  slave  and  half  free."  Lincoln 
was  right,  and  so  from  their  own  point  of  view,  that  of 
men  not  brave  or  wise  enough  to  take  in  hand  a  difficult 
social  reform,  were  the  leaders  who  declared  immediately 
for  secession. 

In  no  other  contest  of  history  are  those  elements  in 
human  affairs  on  which  tragic  dramatists  are  prone  to 
dwell  so  clearly  marked  as  in  the  American  Civil  War. 
No  unsophisticated  person  now,  except  in  ignorance  as 
to  the  cause  of  the  war,  can  hesitate  as  to  which  side 
enlists  his  sympathy,  or  can  regard  the  victory  of  the 
North  otherwise  than  as  the  costly  and  imperfect  triumph 
of  the  right.  But  the  wrong  side — emphatically  wrong 
• — is  not  lacking  in  dignity  or  human  worth;  the  long- 
drawn  agony  of  the  struggle  is  not  purely  horrible  to 
contemplate;  there  is  nothing  that  in  this  case  makes  us 
reluctant  to  acknowledge  the  merits  of  the  men  who 
took  arms  in  the  evil  cause.  The  experience  as  to  the 
relations  between  superior  and  inferior  races,  which  is 
now  at  the  command  of  every  intelligent  Englishman, 
forbids  us  to  think  that  the  inferiority  of  the  negro  justi- 
fied slavery,  but  it  also  forbids  us  to  fancy  that  men  to 
whom  the  relation  of  owner  to  slave  had  become  natural 
must  themselves  have  been  altogether  degraded.  The 
men  upon  the  Southern  side  who  can  claim  any  special 
admiration  were  simple  soldiers  who  had  no  share  in 
causing  the  war;  among  the  political  leaders  whom  they 
served,  there  was  none  who  stands  out  now  as  a  very 


i8a  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

interesting  personality,  and  their  chosen  chief  is  an  uti- 
attractive  figure ;  but  we  are  not  to  think  of  these  authors 
of  the  war  as  a  gang  of  hardened,  unscrupulous,  cor- 
rupted men.  As  a  class  they  were  reputable,  public- 
spirited,  and  religious  men;  they  served  their  cause  with 
devotion  and  were  not  wholly  to  blame  that  they  chose 
it  so  ill.  The  responsibility  for  the  actual  secession  does 
not  rest  in  an  especial  degree  on  any  individual  leader. 
Secession  began  rather  with  the  spontaneous  movement 
of  the  whole  community  of  South  Carolina,  and  in  the 
States  which  followed  leading  politicians  expressed  rather 
than  inspired  the  general  will.  The  guilt  which  any  of 
us  can  venture  to  attribute  for  this  action  of  a  whole 
deluded  society  must  rest  on  men  like  Calhoun,  who  in 
a  previous  generation,  while  opinion  in  the  South  was  still 
to  some  extent  unformed,  stifled  all  thought  of  reform 
and  gave  the  semblance  of  moral  and  intellectual  justifica- 
tion to  a  system  only  susceptible  of  a  historical  excuse. 

The  South  was  neither  base  nor  senseless,  but  it  was 
wrong.  To  some  minds  it  may  not  seem  to  follow  that 
it  was  well  to  resist  it  by  war,  and  indeed  at  the  time,  as 
often  happens,  people  took  up  arms  with  greater  search- 
ings  of  heart  upon  the  right  side  than  upon  the  wrong. 
If  the  slave  States  had  been  suffered  to  depart  in  peace 
they  would  have  set  up  a  new  and  peculiar  political  society, 
more  truly  held  together  than  the  original  Union  by  a 
single  avowed  principle;  a  nation  dedicated  to  the  in- 
equality  of  men.  It  is  not  really  possible  to  think  of  the 
free  national  life  which  they  could  thus  have  initiated  as 
a  thing  to  be  respected  and  preserved.  Nor  is  it  true 
that  their  choice  for  themselves  of  this  dingy  freedom  was 
no  concern  of  their  neighbours.  We  have  seen  how  the 
slave  interest  hankered  for  enlarged  dominion;  and  it 
is  certain  that  the  Southern  Confederacy,  once  firmly 
established,  would  have  been  an  aggressive  and  disturb- 
ing power  upon  the  continent  of  America.  The  questions 
of  territorial  and  other  rights  between  it  and  the  old 
Union  might  have  been  capable  of  satisfactory  settle- 
ment for  the  moment,  or  they  might  have  proved  as 


SECESSION  183 

insoluble  as  Lincoln  thought  they  were.  But,  at  the 
best,  if  the  States  which  adhered  to  the  old  Union  had 
admitted  the  claim  of  the  first  seceding  States  to  go,  they 
could  only  have  retained  for  themselves  an  insecure  ex- 
istence as  a  nation,  threatened  at  each  fresh  conflict  of 
interest  or  sentiment  with  a  further  disruption  which 
could  not  upon  any  principle  have  been  resisted.  The 
preceding  chapters  have  dwelt  with  iteration  upon  the 
sentiments  which  had  operated  to  make  Americans  a 
people,  and  on  the  form  and  the  degree  in  which  those 
sentiments  animated  the  mind  of  Lincoln.  Only  so  per- 
haps can  we  fully  appreciate  for  what  the  people  of  the 
North  fought.  It  is  inaccurate,  though  not  gravely  mis- 
leading, to  say  that  they  fought  against  slavery.  It  would 
be  wholly  false  to  say  that  they  fought  for  mere  dominion. 
They  fought  to  preserve  and  complete  a  political  unity 
nobly  conceived  by  those  who  had  done  most  to  create  it, 
and  capable,  as  the  sequel  showed,  of  a  permanent  and  a 
healthy  continuance. 

And  it  must  never  be  forgotten,  if  we  wish  to  enter 
into  the  spirit  which  sustained  the  North  in  its  struggle, 
that  loyalty  for  Union  had  a  larger  aspect  than  that  of 
mere  allegiance  to  a  particular  authority.  Vividly  present 
to  the  mind  of  some  few,  vaguely  but  honestly  present  to 
the  mind  of  a  great  multitude,  was  the  sense  that  even  had 
slavery  not  entered  into  the  question  a  larger  cause  than 
that  of  their  recent  Union  was  bound  up  with  the  issues 
of  the  war.  The  Government  of  the  United  States  had 
been  the  first  and  most  famous  attempt  in  a  great  modern 
country  to  secure  government  by  the  will  of  the  mass  of 
the  people.  If  in  this  crucial  instance  such  a  Govern- 
ment were  seen  to  be  intolerably  weak,  if  it  was  found 
to  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  first  powerful  minority  which 
seized  a  worked-up  occasion  to  rebel,  what  they  had 
learnt  to  think  the  most  hopeful  agency  for  the  uplifting 
of  man  everywhere  would  for  ages  to  come  have  proved 
a  failure.  This  feeling  could  not  be  stronger  in  any 
American  than  it  was  in  Lincoln  himself.  "  It  has  long 
been  a  question,"  he  said,  "  whether  any  Government 


184  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

which  is  not  too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  the  people  can 
be  strong  enough  to  maintain  itself."  There  is  one 
marked  feature  of  his  patriotism,  which  could  be  illus- 
trated by  abundance  of  phrases  from  his  speeches  and 
letters,  and  which  the  people  of  several  countries  of 
Europe  can  appreciate  to-day.  His  affection  for  his  own 
country  and  its  institutions  is  curiously  dependent  upon  a 
wider  cause  of  human  good,  and  is  not  a  whit  the  less 
intense  for  that.  There  is  perhaps  no  better  expression 
of  this  widespread  feeling  in  the  North  than  the  un- 
prepared speech  which  he  delivered  on  his  way  to  become 
President,  in  the  Hall  of  Independence  at  Philadelphia, 
in  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  been 
signed.  "I  have  never,"  he  said,  "had  a  feeling  politi- 
cally that  did  not  spring  from  the  sentiments  embodied 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  I  have  often  pon* 
dered  over  the  dangers  which  were  incurred  by  the  men 
who  assembled  here  and  framed  and  adopted  that 
Declaration  of  Independence.  I  have  pondered  over  the 
toils  that  were  endured  by  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the 
army  who  achieved  that  independence.  I  have  often 
inquired  of  myself  what  great  principle  or  idea  it  was 
that  kept  the  Confederacy  so  long  together.  It  was  not 
the  mere  matter  of  separation  of  the  colonies  from  the 
motherland,  it  was  the  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  which  gave  liberty,  not  alone  to  the  people 
of  this  country,  but  I  hope  to  the  world,  for  all  future 
time.  It  was  that  which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time 
the  weight  would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all 


men." 


2.  The  Progress  of  Secession. 

So  much  for  the  broad  causes  without  which  there 
could  have  been  no  Civil  War  in  America.  We  have 
now  to  sketch  the  process  by  which  the  fuel  was  kindled. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  the  President  elected  in 
November  does  not  enter  upon  his  office  for  nearly  four 
months.  For  that  time,  therefore,  the  conduct  of  govern- 
ment lay  in  the  hands  of  President  Buchanan,  who,  for  all 


SECESSION  185 

his  past  subserviency  to  Southern  interests,  believed  and 
said  that  secession  was  absolutely  unlawful.  Several 
members  of  his  Cabinet  were  Southerners  who  favoured 
secession;  but  the  only  considerable  man  among  them, 
Cobb  of  Georgia,  soon  declared  that  his  loyalty  to  his 
own  State  was  not  compatible  with  his  office  and  resigned; 
and,  though  others,  including  the  Secretary  for  War, 
hung  on  to  their  position,  it  does  not  appear  that  they 
influenced  Buchanan  much,  or  that  their  somewhat  dubi- 
ous conduct  while  they  remained  was  of  great  importance. 
Black,  the  Attorney-General,  and  Cass,  the  Secretary  of 
State,  who,  however,  resigned  when  his  advice  was  dis- 
regarded, were  not  only  loyal  to  the  Union,  but  anxious 
that  the  Government  should  do  everything  that  seemed 
necessary  in  its  defence.  Thus  this  administration, 
hitherto  Southerpn  in  its  sympathies,  must  be  regarded 
for  its  remaining  months  as  standing  for  the  Union,  so 
far  as  it  stood  for  anything.  Lincoln  meanwhile  had 
little  that  he  could  do  but  to  watch  events  and  prepare. 
There  was,  nevertheless,  a  point  in  the  negotiations  which 
took  place  between  parties  at  which  he  took  on  himself 
a  tremendous  responsibility  and  at  which  his  action  was 
probably  decisive  of  all  that  followed. 

The  Presidential  election  took  place  on  November  6, 
1860.  On  November  10  the  Legislature  of  South  Caro- 
lina, which  had  remained  in  session  for  this  purpose, 
convened  a  specially  elected  Convention  of  the  State  to 
decide  upon  the  question  of  secession.  Slave  owners  and 
poor  whites,  young  and  old,  street  rabble,  persons  of 
fashion,  politicians  and  clergy,  the  whole  people  of  this 
peculiar  State,  distinguished  in  some  marked  respects  even 
from  its  nearest  neighbours,  received  the  action  of  the 
Legislature  with  enthusiastic  but  grave  approval.  It  was 
not  till  December  20  that  the  Convention  could  pass  its 
formal  "  Ordinance  of  Secession,"  but  there  was  never 
for  a  moment  any  doubt  as  to  what  it  would  do.  The 
question  was  what  other  States  would  follow  the  example 
of  South  Carolina.  There  ensued  in  all  the  Southern 
States  earnest  discussion  as  to  whether  to  secede  or  not, 


i86  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  in  the  North,  on  which  the  action  of  South  Carolina, 
however  easily  it  might  have  been  foretold,  came  as  a 
shock,  great  bewilderment  as  to  what  was  to  be  done. 
As  has  been  said,  there  was  in  the  South  generally  no 
disposition  to  give  up  Southern  claims,  no  doubt  as  to  the 
right  of  secession,  and  no  fundamental  and  overriding 
loyalty  to  the  Union,  but  there  was  a  considerable  re- 
luctance to  give  up  the  Union  and  much  doubt  as  to 
whether  secession  was  really  wise;  there  was  in  the  North 
among  those  who  then  made  themselves  heard  no  doubt 
whatever  as  to  the  loyalty  due  to  the  Union,  but  there 
was,  apart  from  previous  differences  about  slavery,  every 
possible  variety  and  fluctuation  of  opinion  as  to  the  right 
way  of  dealing  with  States  which  should  secede  or  rebel. 
In  certain  border  States,  few  in  number  but  likely  to  play 
an  important  part  in  civil  war,  Northern  and  Southern 
elements  were  mingled.  Amid  loud  and  distracted  dis- 
cussion, public  and  private,  leaders  of  the  several  parties 
and  of  the  two  sections  of  the  country  conducted  earnest 
negotiations  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  peaceable  settlement, 
and  when  Congress  met,  early  in  December,  their  debates 
took  a  formal  shape  in  committees  appointed  by  the 
Senate  and  by  the  House. 

Meanwhile  the  President  was  called  upon  to  deal  with 
the  problem  presented  for  the  Executive  Government  of 
the  Union  by  the  action  of  South  Carolina.  It  may  be 
observed  that  if  he  had  given  his  mind  to  the  military 
measures  required  to  meet  the  possible  future,  the  North, 
which  in  the  end  had  his  entire  sympathy,  would  have 
begun  the  war  with  that  advantage  in  preparation  which, 
as  it  was,  was  gained  by  the  South.  In  this  respect  he 
did  nothing.  But,  apart  from  this,  if  he  had  taken  up  a 
clear  and  comprehensible  attitude  towards  South  Carolina 
and  had  given  a  lead  to  Unionist  sympathy,  he  would 
have  consolidated  public  opinion  in  the  North,  and  he 
would  have  greatly  strengthened  those  in  the  South  who 
remained  averse  to  secession.  There  would  have  been  a 
considerable  further  secession,  but  in  all  likelihood  it 
would  not  have  become  so  formidable  as  it  did.  As  it 


SECESSION  187 

was,  the  movement  for  secession  proceeded  with  all  the 
proud  confidence  that  can  be  felt  in  a  right  which  is  not 
challenged,  and  the  people  of  the  South  were  not  aware, 
though  shrewd  leaders  like  Jefferson  Davis  knew  it  well, 
of  the  risk  they  would  encounter  till  they  had  committed 
themselves  to  defying  it. 

The  problem  before  Buchanan  was  the  same  which, 
aggravated  by  his  failure  to  deal  with  it,  confronted 
Lincoln  when  he  came  into  office,  and  it  must  be  clearly 
understood.  The  secession  of  South  Carolina  was  not 
a  movement  which  could  at  once  be  quelled  by  prompt 
measures  of  repression.  Even  if  sufficient  military  force 
and  apt  forms  of  law  had  existed  for  taking  such  measures 
they  would  have  united  the  South  in  supp.ort  of  South 
Carolina,  and  alienated  the  North,  which  was  anxious 
for  conciliation.  Yet  it  was  possible  for  the  Government 
of  the  Union,  while  patiently  abstaining  from  violent  or 
provocative  action,  to  make  plain  that  in  the  last  resort 
it  would  maintain  its  rights  in  South  Carolina  with  its 
full  strength.  The  main  dealings  of  the  Union  authori- 
ties with  the  people  of  a  State  came  under  a  very  few 
heads.  There  were  local  Federal  Courts  to  try  certain 
limited  classes  of  issues;  jurors,  of  course,  could  not  be 
compelled  to  serve  in  these  nor  parties  to  appear.  There 
was  the  postal  service;  the  people  of  South  Carolina  did 
not  at  present  interfere  with  this  source  of  convenience 
to  themselves  and  of  revenue  to  the  Union.  There  were 
customs  duties  to  be  collected  at  the  ports,  and  there 
were  forts  at  the  entrance  of  the  harbour  in  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  as  well  as  forts,  dockyards  and  arsenals 
of  the  United  States  at  a  number  of  points  in  the  South- 
ern States;  the  Government  should  quietly  but  openly 
have  taken  steps  to  ensure  that  the  collection  should  go 
on  unmolested,  and  that  the  forts  and  the  like  should  be 
made  safe  from  attack,  in  South  Carolina  and  everywhere 
else  where  they  were  likely  to  be  threatened.  Measures 
of  this  sort  were  early  urged  upon  Buchanan  by  Scott,  the 
Lieutenant-General  (that  is,  Second  in  Command  under 
the  President)  of  the  Army,  who  had  been  the  officer 


i88  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  carried  out  Jackson's  military  dispositions  when 
secession  was  threatened  in  South  Carolina  thirty  years 
before,  and  by  other  officers  concerned,  particularly  by 
Major  Anderson,  a  keen  Southerner,  but  a  keen  soldier, 
commanding  the  forts  at  Charleston,  and  by  Cass  and 
Black  in  his  Cabinet.  Public  opinion  in  the  North  de- 
manded such  measures. 

If  further  action  than  the  proper  manning  and  supply 
of  certain  forts  had  been  in  contemplation,  an  embarrass- 
ing legal  question  would  have  arisen.  In  the  opinion  of 
the  Attorney-General,  of  leading  Democrats  like  Cass  and 
Douglas,  and  apparently  of  most  legal  authorities  of 
every  party,  there  was  an  important  distinction,  puzzling 
to  an  English  lawyer  even  if  he  is  versed  in  the  American 
Constitution,  between  the  steps  which  the  Government 
might  justly  take  in  self-protection,  and  measures  which 
could  be  regarded  as  coercion  of  the  State  of  South 
Carolina  as  such.  These  latter  would  be  unlawful.  Bu- 
chanan, instead  of  acting  on  or  declaring  his  intentions, 
entertained  Congress,  which  met  early  in  December,  with 
a  Message,  laying  down  very  clearly  the  illegality  of 
secession,  but  discussing  at  large  this  abstract  question 
of  the  precise  powers  of  the  Executive  in  resisting  seces- 
sion. The  legal  question  will  not  further  concern  us 
because  the  distinction  which  it  was  really  intended  to 
draw  between  lawful  and  unlawful  measures  against 
secession  quite  coincided,  in  its  practical  application,  with 
what  common  sense  and  just  feeling  would  in  these  pe- 
culiar circumstances  have  dictated.  But,  as  a  natural 
consequence  of  such  discussion,  an  impression  was  spread 
abroad  of  the  illegality  of  something  vaguely  called 
coercion,  and  of  the  shadowy  nature  of  any  power  which 
the  Government  claimed. 

Up  to  Lincoln's  inauguration  the  story  of  the  Charles- 
ton forts,  of  which  one,  lying  on  an  island  in  the  mouth 
of  the  harbour,  was  the  famous  Fort  Sumter,  is  briefly 
this.  Buchanan  was  early  informed  that  if  the  Union 
Government  desired  to  hold  them,  troops  and  ships  of 
war  should  instantly  be  sent.  Congressmen  from  South 


SECESSION  189 

Carolina  remaining  in  Washington  came  to  him  and 
represented  that  their  State  regarded  these  forts  upon 
its  soil  as  their  own;  they  gave  assurances  that  there 
would  be  no  attack  on  the  forts  if  the  existing  military 
situation  was  not  altered,  and  they  tried  to  get  a  promise 
that  the  forts  should  not  be  reinforced.  Buchanan  would 
give  them  no  promise,  but  he  equally  refused  the  en- 
treaties of  Scott  and  his  own  principal  ministers  that  he 
should  reinforce  the  forts,  because  he  declared  that  this 
would  precipitate  a  conflict.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
year  Major  Anderson,  not  having  men  enough  to  hold 
all  the  forts  if,  as  he  expected,  they  were  attacked,  with- 
drew his  whole  force  to  Fort  Sumter,  which  he  thought 
the  most  defensible,  dismantling  the  principal  other  fort. 
The  Governor  of  South  Carolina  protested  against  this 
as  a  violation  of  a  supposed  understanding  with  the  Presi- 
dent, and  seized  upon  the  United  States  arsenal  and  the 
custom  house,  taking  the  revenue  officers  into  State 
service.  Commissioners  had  previously  gone  from  South 
Carolina  to  Washington  to  request  the  surrender  of  the 
forts,  upon  terms  of  payment  for  property;  they  now 
declared  that  Anderson's  withdrawal,  as  putting  him  in 
a  better  position  for  defence,  was  an  act  of  war,  and  de- 
manded that  he  should  be  ordered  to  retire  to  the  main- 
land. Buchanan  wavered;  decided  to  yield  to  them  on 
this  last  point;  ultimately,  on  the  last  day  of  1860,  yielded 
instead  to  severe  pressure  from  Black,  and  decided  to 
reinforce  Anderson  on  Fort  Sumter.  The  actual  attempt 
to  reinforce  him  was  bungled;  a  transport  sent  for  this 
purpose  was  fired  upon  by  the  South  Carolina  forces, 
and  returned  idle.  This  first  act  of  war,  for  some  curious 
reason,  caused  no  excitement.  The  people  of  the  North 
were  intensely  relieved  that  Buchanan  had  not  yielded  to 
whatever  South  Carolina  might  demand,  and,  being  prone 
to  forgive  and  to  applaud,  seem  for  a  time  to  have  experi- 
enced a  thrill  of  glory  in  the  thought  that  the  national 
administration  had  a  mind.  Dix,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  elated  them  yet  further  by  telegraphing  to  a 
Treasury  official  at  New  Orleans,  "  If  any  one  attempts 


igo  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  haul  down  the  American  flag,  shoot  him  on  the  spot." 
But  Anderson  remained  without  reinforcements  or 
further  provisions  when  Lincoln  entered  office;  and 
troops  in  the  service  first  of  South  Carolina  and  after- 
wards of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  which  was  formed 
in  February,  erected  batteries  and  prepared  to  bombard 
Fort  Sumter. 

No  possible  plea  for  President  Buchanan  can  make 
him  rank  among  those  who  have  held  high  office  with 
any  credit  at  all,  but  he  must  at  once  be  acquitted  of 
any  intentional  treachery  to  the  Union.  It  is  agreed 
that  he  was  a  truthful  and  sincere  man,  and  there  is 
something  pleasant  in  the  simple  avowal  he  made  to  a 
Southern  negotiator  who  was  pressing  him  for  some 
instant  concession,  that  he  always  said  his  prayers  before 
deciding  any  important  matter  of  State.  His  previous 
dealings  with  Kansas  would  suggest  to  us  robust  unscru- 
pulousness,  but  it  seems  that  he  had  quite  given  his  judg- 
ment over  into  the  keeping  of  a  little  group  of  Southern 
Senators.  Now  that  he  was  deprived  of  this  help,  he  had 
only  enough  will  left  to  be  obstinate  against  other  advice. 
It  is  suggested  that  he  had  now  but  one  motive,  the  desire 
that  the  struggle  should  break  out  in  his  successor's  time 
rather  than  his  own.  Even  this  is  perhaps  to  judge 
Buchanan's  notorious  and  calamitous  laches  unfairly. 
Any  action  that  he  took  must  to  a  certain  extent  have 
been  provocative,  and  he  knew  it,  and  he  may  have 
clung  to  the  hope  that  by  sheer  inaction  he  would  give 
time  for  some  possible  forces  of  reason  and  conciliation 
to  work.  If  so,  he  was  wrong,  but  similar  and  about 
as  foolish  hopes  paralysed  Lincoln's  Cabinet  (and  to  a 
less  but  still  very  dangerous  degree  Lincoln  himself) 
when  they  took  up  the  problem  which  Buchanan's  neglect 
had  made  more  urgent.  Buchanan  had  in  this  instance 
the  advantage  of  far  better  advice,  but  this  silly  old  man 
must  not  be  gibbeted  and  Lincoln  left  free  from  criticism 
for  his  part  in  the  same  transaction.  Both  Presidents 
hesitated  where  to  us  who  look  back  the  case  seems  clear. 
The  circumstances  had  altered  in  some  respects  when 


SECESSION  191 

Lincoln  came  in,  but  it  is  only  upon  a  somewhat  broad 
survey  of  the  governing  tendencies  of  Lincoln's  adminis- 
tration and  of  its  mighty  result  in  the  mass  that  we  dis- 
cover what  really  distinguishes  his  slowness  of  action  in 
such  cases  as  this  from  the  hesitation  of  a  man  like 
Buchanan.  Buchanan  waited  in  the  hope  of  avoiding 
action,  Lincoln  with  the  firm  intention  to  see  his  path  in 
the  fullest  light  he  could  get. 

From  an  early  date  in  November,  1860,  every  effort 
was  made,  by  men  too  numerous  to  mention,  to  devise 
if  possible  such  a  settlement  of  what  were  now  called 
the  grievances  of  the  South  as  would  prevent  any  other 
State  from  following  the  example  of  South  Carolina. 
Apart  from  the  intangible  difference  presented  by  much 
disapprobation  of  slavery  in  the  North  and  growing  re- 
sentment in  the  South  as  this  disapprobation  grew  louder, 
the  solid  ground  of  dispute  concerned  the  position  of 
slavery  in  the  existing  Territories  and  future  acquisitions 
of  the  United  States  Government;  the  quarrel  arose  from 
the  election  of  a  President  pledged  to  use  whatever  power 
he  had,  though  indeed  that  might  prove  little,  to  prevent 
the  further  extension  of  slavery;  and  we  may  almost 
confine  our  attention  to  this  point.  Other  points  came 
into  discussion.  Several  of  the  Northern  States  had 
"  Personal  Liberty  Laws  "  expressly  devised  to  impede 
the  execution  of  the  Federal  law  of  1850  as  to  fugitive 
slaves.  Some  attention  was  devoted  to  these,  especially 
by  Alexander  Stephens,  who,  as  the  Southern  leader  most 
opposed  to  immediate  secession,  wished  to  direct  men's 
minds  to  a  grievance  that  could  be  remedied.  Lincoln, 
who  had  always  said  that,  though  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
should  be  made  just  and  seemly,  it  ought  in  substance  to 
be  enforced,  made  clear  again  that  he  thought  such 
"  Personal  Liberty  Laws  "  should  be  amended,  though 
he  protested  that  it  was  not  for  him  as  President-elect  to 
advise  the  State  Legislatures  on  their  own  business.  The 
Republicans  generally  agreed.  Some  of  the  States  con- 
cerned actually  began  amending  their  laws.  Thus,  if  the 
disquiet  of  the  South  had  depended  on  this  grievance,  the 


i92  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cause  of  disquiet  would  no  doubt  have  been  removed. 
Again  the  Republican  leaders,  including  Lincoln  in  par- 
ticular, let  there  be  no  ground  for  thinking  that  an  attack 
was  intended  upon  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  was 
established;  they  offered  eventually  to  give  the  most 
solemn  pledge  possible  in  this  matter  by  passing  an 
Amendment  of  the  Constitution  declaring  that  it  should 
never  be  altered  so  as  to  take  away  the  independence  of 
the  existing  slave  States  as  to  this  portion  of  their 
democratic  institutions.  Lincoln  indeed  refused  on  sev- 
eral occasions  to  make  any  fresh  public  disclaimer  of  an 
intention  to  attack  existing  institutions.  His  views  were 
"open  to  all  who  will  read."  "  For  the  good  men  in  the 
South,"  he  writes  privately,  " — I  regard  the  majority  of 
them  as  such — I  have  no  objection  to  repeat  them  seventy 
times  seven.  But  I  have  bad  men  to  deal  with  both  North 
and  South;  men  who  are  eager  for  something  new  upon 
which  to  base  new  misrepresentations;  men  who  would 
like  to  frighten  me,  or  at  least  fix  upon  me  the  character 
of  timidity  and  cowardice."  Nevertheless  he  endeav- 
oured constantly  in  private  correspondence  to  narrow 
and  define  the  issue,  which,  as  he  insisted,  concerned  only 
the  territorial  extension  of  slavery. 

The  most  serious  of  the  negotiations  that  took  place, 
and  to  which  most  hope  was  attached,  consisted  in  the 
deliberations  of  a  committee  of  thirteen  appointed  by 
the  Senate  in  December,  1860,  which  took  for  its  guidance 
a  detailed  scheme  of  compromise  put  forward  by  Senator 
Crittenden,  of  Kentucky.  The  efforts  of  this  committee 
to  come  to  an  agreement  broke  down  at  the  outset  upon 
the  question  of  the  Territories,  and  the  responsibility, 
for  good  or  for  evil,  of  bringing  them  to  an  end  must 
probably  be  attributed  to  the  advice  of  Lincoln.  Critten- 
den's  first  proposal  was  that  there  should  be  a  Consti- 
tutional Amendment  declaring  that  slavery  should  be 
prohibited  "  in  all  the  territory  of  the  United  States,  now 
held  or  hereafter  acquired,  north  of  latitude  36  °  30  '  " — 
(the  limit  fixed  in  the  Missouri  Compromise,  but  re- 
stricted then  to  the  Louisiana  purchase) — while  in  all 


SECESSION  193 

territory,  now  held  or  thereafter  acquired  south  of  that 
line,  it  should  be  permitted.  Crittenden  also  proposed 
that  when  a  Territory  on  either  side  of  the  line  became 
a  State,  it  should  become  free  to  decide  the  question  for 
itself;  but  the  discussion  never  reached  this  point.  On  the 
proposal  as  to  the  Territories  there  seemed  at  first  to  be 
a  prospect  that  the  Republicans  would  agree,  in  which 
case  the  South  might  very  likely  have  agreed  too.  The 
desire  for  peace  was  intensely  strong  among  the  com- 
mercial men  of  New  York  and  other  cities,  and  it  af- 
fected the  great  political  managers  and  the  statesmen 
who,  like  Seward  himself,  were  in  close  touch  with  this 
commercial  influence.  Tenacious  adherence  to  declared 
principle  may  have  been  as  strong  in  country  districts  as 
the  desire  for  accommodation  was  in  these  cities,  but  it 
was  at  any  rate  far  less  vocal,  and  on  the  whole  it  seems 
that  compromise  was  then  in  the  air.  It  seemed  clear 
from  the  expressed  opinions  of  his  closest  allies  that 
Seward  would  support  this  compromise.  Now  Seward 
just  at  this  time  received  Lincoln's  offer  of  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  State,  a  great  office  and  one  in  which  Seward 
expected  to  rule  Lincoln  and  the  country,  but  in  accepting 
which,  as  he  did,  he  made  it  incumbent  on  himself  not  to 
part  company  at  once  with  the  man  who  would  be  nomi- 
nally his  chief.  Then  there  occurred  a  visit  paid  on 
Seward's  behalf  by  his  friend  Thurlow  Weed,  an  astute 
political  manager  but  also  an  able  statesman,  to  Lincoln 
at  Springfield.  Weed  brought  back  a  written  statement 
of  Lincoln's  views.  Seward's  support  was  not  given  to 
the  compromise;  nor  naturally  was  that  of  the  more 
radical  Republicans,  to  use  a  term  which  now  became 
common;  and  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  found  itself 
unable  to  agree. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat  what  Lincoln's  conviction 
on  this,  to  him  the  one  essential  point  of  policy,  was,  or 
to  quote  from  the  numerous  letters  in  which  from  the 
time  of  his  nomination  he  tried  to  keep  the  minds  of  his 
friends  firm  on  this  single  principle,  and  to  show  them 
that  if  there  were  the  slightest  further  yielding  as  to 


194  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

this,  save  indeed  as  to  the  peculiar  case  of  New  Mexico, 
which  did  not  matter,  and  which  perhaps  he  regarded  as 
conceded  already,  the  Southern  policy  of  extending  slavery 
and  of  "  filibustering  "  against  neighbouring  counties  for 
that  purpose  would  revive  in  full  force,  and  the  whole 
labour  of  the  Republican  movement  would  have  to  begin 
over  again.  Since  his  election  he  had  been  writing  also 
to  Southern  politicians  who  were  personally  friendly,  to 
Gilmer  of  North  Carolina,  to  whom  he  offered  Cabinet 
office,  and  to  Stephens,  making  absolutely  plain  that  his 
difference  with  them  lay  in  this  one  point,  but  making 
it  no  less  plain  that  on  this  point  he  was,  with  entire 
respect  to  them,  immovable.  Now,  on  December  22,  the 
New  York  Tribune  was  "  enabled  to  state  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  stands  now  as  he  stood  in  May  last,  square  upon 
the  Republican  platform."  The  writing  that  Weed 
brought  to  Seward  must  have  said,  perhaps  more  elabo- 
rately, the  same.  If  Lincoln  had  not  stood  square  upon 
that  platform  there  were  others  like  Senator  Wade  of 
Ohio  and  Senator  Grimes  of  Iowa  who  might  have  done 
so  and  might  have  been  able  to  wreck  the  compromise. 
Lincoln,  however,  did  wreck  it,  at  a  time  when  it  seemed 
likely  to  succeed,  and  it  is  most  probable  that  thereby  he 
caused  the  Civil  War.  It  cannot  be  said  that  he  definitely 
expected  the  Civil  War.  Probably  he  avoided  making 
any  definite  forecast;  but  he  expressed  no  alarm,  and  he 
privately  told  a  friend  about  this  time  that  "  he  could 
not  in  his  heart  believe  that  the  South  designed  the  over- 
throw of  the  Government."  But,  if  he  had  in  his  heart 
believed  it,  nothing  in  his  life  gives  reason  to  think  that 
he  would  have  been  more  anxious  to  conciliate  the  South; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  in  line  with  all  we  know  of  his 
feelings  to  suppose  that  he  would  have  thought  firmness 
all  the  more  imperative.  We  cannot  recall  the  solemnity 
of  his  long-considered  speech  about  "  a  house  divided 
against  itself,"  with  which  all  h's  words  and  acts  ac- 
corded, without  seeing  that,  if  perhaps  he  speculated  little 
about  the  risks,  he  was  prepared  to  face  them  whatever 
they  were.  Doubtless  he  took  a  heavy  responsibility,  but 


SECESSION  195 

it  is  painful  to  find  honourable  historians,  who  heartily 
dislike  the  cause  of  slavery,  capable  to-day  of  wondering 
whether  he  was  right  to  do  so.  "  If  he  had  not  stood 
square  "  in  December  upon  the  same  "  platform "  on 
which  he  had  stood  in  May,  if  he  had  preferred  to  enroll 
himself  among  those  statesmen  of  all  countries  whose 
strongest  words  are  uttered  for  their  own  subsequent 
enjoyment  in  eating  them,  he  might  conceivably  have 
saved  much  bloodshed,  but  he  would  not  have  left  the 
United  States  a  country  of  which  any  good  man  was 
proud  to  be  a  citizen. 

Thus,  by  the  end  of  1860,  the  bottom  was  really  out 
of  the  policy  of  compromise,  and  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
examine  the  praiseworthy  efforts  that  were  still  made 
for  it  while  State  after  State  in  the  South  was  deciding 
to  secede.  One  interesting  proposal,  which  was  aired  in 
January,  1861,  deserves  notice,  namely,  that  the  terms 
of  compromise  proposed  by  Crittenden  should  have  been 
submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  whole  people.  It  was  not 
passed.  Seward,  whom  many  people  now  thought  likely 
to  catch  at  any  and  every  proposal  for  a  settlement,  said 
afterwards  with  justice  that  it  was  "  unconstitutional  and 
ineffectual."  Ineffectual  it  would  have  been  in  this  sense : 
the  compromise  would  in  all  probability  have  been  carried 
by  a  majority  consisting  of  men  in  the  border  States  and 
of  all  those  elsewhere  who,  though  they  feared  war  and 
desired  good  feeling,  had  no  further  definite  opinion  upon 
the  chief  questions  at  issue;  but  it  would  have  left  a 
local  majority  in  many  of  the  Southern  States  and  a 
local  majority  in  many  of  the  Northern  States  as  irrecon- 
cilable with  each  other  as  ever.  It  was  opposed  also  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  In  a  great  country  where 
the  people  with  infinitely  varied  interests  and  opinions  can 
slowly  make  their  predominant  wishes  appear,  but  can- 
not really  take  counsel  together  and  give  a  firm  decision 
upon  any  emergency,  there  may  be  exceptional  cases  when 
a  popular  vote  on  a  defined  issue  would  be  valuable, 
significant,  desired  by  the  people  themselves;  but  the 
machinery  of  representative  government,  however  faulty, 


I96  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

is  the  only  machinery  by  which  the  people  can  in  some 
sense  govern  itself,  instead  of  making  itself  ungovern- 
able. Above  all,  in  a  serious  crisis  it  is  supremely  repug- 
nant to  the  spirit  of  popular  government  that  the  men 
chosen  by  a  people  to  govern  it  should  throw  their  re- 
sponsibility back  at  the  heads  of  the  electors.  It  is  well 
to  be  clear  as  to  the  kind  of  proceeding  which  the  authors 
of  this  proposal  were  really  advocating:  a  statesman  has 
come  before  the  ordinary  citizen  with  a  definite  statement 
of  the  principle  on  which  he  would  act,  and  an  ordinary 
citizen  has  thereupon  taken  his  part  in  entrusting  him 
with  power;  then  comes  the  moment  for  the  statesman 
to  carry  out  his  principle,  and  the  latent  opposition  be- 
comes of  necessity  more  alarming;  the  statesman  is  there- 
fore to  say  to  the  ordinary  citizen,  "  This  is  a  more  diffi- 
cult matter  than  I  thought;  and  if  I  am  to  act  as  I  said 
I  would,  take  on  yourself  the  responsibility  which  I 
recently  put  myself  forward  to  bear."  The  ordinary 
citizen  will  naturally  as  a  rule  decline  a  responsibility  thus 
offered  him,  but  he  will  not  be  grateful  for  the  offer  or 
glad  to  be  a  forced  accomplice  in  this  process  of  inde- 
cision. 

If  we  could  determine  the  prevailing  sentiment  in  the 
North  at  some  particular  moment  during  the  crisis,  it 
would  probably  represent  what  very  few  individual  men 
continued  to  think  for  six  months  together.  Early  in  the 
crisis  some  strong  opponents  of  slavery  were  for  letting 
the  South  go,  declaring,  as  did  Horace  Greeley  of  the 
New  York  Tribune,  that  "  they  would  not  be  citizens  of 
a  Republic  of  which  one  part  was  pinned  to  the  other  part 
with  bayonets";  but  this  sentiment  seems  soon  to  have 
given  way  when  the  same  men  began  to  consider,  as 
Lincoln  had  considered,  whether  an  agreement  to  sever 
the  Union  between  the  States,  with  the  difficult  adjust- 
ment of  mutual  interests  which  it  would  have  involved, 
could  be  so  effected  as  to  secure  a  lasting  peace.  A  blind 
rage  on  behalf  of  conciliation  broke  out  later  in  pros- 
perous business  men  in  great  towns — even  in  Boston  it  is 
related  that  "  Beacon  Street  aristocrats  "  broke  up  a 


SECESSION  197 

meeting  to  commemorate  John  Brown  on  the  anniversary 
of  his  death,  and  grave  persons  thought  the  meeting  an 
outrage.  Waves  of  eager  desire  for  compromise  passed 
over  the  Northern  community.  Observers  at  the  time 
and  historians  after  are  easily  mistaken  as  to  popular 
feeling;  the  acute  fluctuations  of  opinion  inevitable  among 
journalists,  and  in  any  sort  of  circle  where  men  are  con- 
stantly meeting  and  talking  politics,  may  leave  the  great 
mass  of  quiet  folk  almost  unaffected.  We  may  be  sure 
that  there  was  a  considerable  body  of  steady  opinion  very 
much  in  accord  with  Lincoln ;  this  should  not  be  forgotten, 
but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  it  prevailed  constantly. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the 
crisis  that  opinion  waveced  and  swayed.  We  should 
miss  the  whole  significance  of  Lincoln's  story  if  we  did 
not  think  of  the  North  now  and  to  the  end  of  the  war  as 
exposed  to  disunion,  hesitation,  and  quick  reaction.  If 
at  this  time  a  sufficiently  authoritative  leader  with  suf- 
ficiently determined  timidity  had  inaugurated  a  policy 
of  stampede,  he  might  have  had  a  vast  and  tumultuous 
following.  Only  his  following  would  quickly,  if  too  late, 
have  repented.  What  was  wanted,  if  the  people  of  the 
North  were  to  have  what  most  justly  might  be  called 
their  way,  was  a  leader  who  would  not  seem  to  hurry 
them  along,  nor  yet  be  ever  looking  round  to  see  if  they 
followed,  but  just  go  groping  forward  among  the  innumer- 
able obstacles,  guided  by  such  principles  of  good  sense 
and  of  right  as  would  perhaps  on  the  whole  and  in  the 
long  run  be  approved  by  the  maturer  thought  of  most 
men;  and  Lincoln  was  such  a  leader. 

When  we  turn  to  the  South,  where,  as  has  been  said, 
the  movement  for  secession  was  making  steady  though 
not  unopposed  progress,  we  have  indeed  to  make  excep- 
tions to  any  sweeping  statement,  but  we  must  recognise 
a  far  more  clearly  defined  and  far  more  prevailing 
general  opinion.  We  may  set  aside  for  the  moment  the 
border  slave  States  of  Maryland,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and 
Missouri,  each  of  which  has  a  distinct  and  an  important 
history.  Delaware  belonged  in  effect  to  the  North.  In 


i98  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Texas  there  were  peculiar  conditions,  and  Texas  had  an 
interesting  history  of  its  own  in  this  matter,  but  may  be 
treated  as  remote.  There  was  also,  as  has  been  said,  a 
highland  region  covering  the  west  of  Virginia  and  the 
east  of  Kentucky  but  reaching  far  south  into  the  northern 
part  of  Alabama.  Looking  at  the  pathetic  spectacle  of 
enduring  heroism  in  a  mistaken  cause  which  the  South 
presented,  many  people  have  been  ready  to  suppose  that 
it  was  manoeuvred  and  tricked  into  its  folly  by  its  politi- 
cians and  might  have  recovered  itself  from  it  if  the  North 
and  the  Government  had  exercised  greater  patience  and 
given  it  time.  In  support  of  this  view  instances  are  cited 
of  strong  Unionist  feeling  in  the  South.  Such  instances 
probably  belong  to  the  peculiar  people  of  this  highland 
country,  or  else  to  the  mixed  and  more  or  less  neutral 
population  that  might  be  found  at  New  Orleans  or  trad- 
ing along  the  Mississippi.  There  remains  a  solid  and 
far  larger  South  in  which  indeed  (except  for  South  Caro- 
lina) dominant  Southern  policy  was  briskly  debated,  but 
as  a  question  of  time,  degree,  and  expediency.  Three 
mental  forces  worked  for  the  same  end:  the  alarmed 
vested  interest  of  the  people  of  substance,  aristocratic 
and  otherwise;  the  racial  sentiment  of  the  poor  whites, 
a  sentiment  often  strongest  in  those  who  have  no  subject 
of  worldly  pride  but  their  colour;  and  the  philosophy  of 
the  clergy  and  other  professional  men  who  constituted 
what  in  some  countries  is  called  the  intellectual  class. 
These  influences  resulted  in  a  rare  uniformity  of  opinion 
that  slavery  was  right  and  all  attacks  on  it  were  mon- 
strous, that  the  Southern  States  were  free  to  secede  and 
form,  if  they  chose,  a  new  Confederacy,  and  that  they 
ought  to  do  this  if  the  moment  should  arrive  when  they 
could  not  otherwise  safeguard  their  interests.  Doubtless 
there  were  leading  men  who  had  thought  over  the  matter 
in  advance  of  the  rest  and  taken  counsel  together  long 
before,  but  the  fact  seems  to  be  that  such  leaders  now 
found  their  followers  in  advance  of  them.  Jefferson 
Davis,  by  far  the  most  commanding  man  among  them, 
now  found  himself — certainly  it  served  him  right — 


SECESSION  199 

anxiously  counselling  delay,  and  spending  nights  in  prayer 
before  he  made  his  farewell  speech  to  the  Senate  in 
words  of  greater  dignity  and  good  feeling  than  seem  to 
comport  with  the  fanatical  narrowness  of  his  view  and 
the  progressive  warping  of  his  determined  character  to 
which  it  condemned  him.  Whatever  fundamental  loyalty 
to  the  Union  existed  in  any  mtin's  heart  there  were 
months  of  debate  in  which  it  found  no  organised  and 
hardly  any  audible  expression.  The  most  notable  stand 
against  actual  secession  was  that  which  was  made  in 
Georgia  by  Stephens;  he  was  determined  and  outspoken, 
but  he  proceeded  wholly  upon  the  ground  that  secession 
was  premature.  And  this  instance  is  significant  of  some- 
thing further.  It  has  been  said  that  discussion  and  voting 
were  not  free,  and  it  would  be  altogether  unlikely  that 
their  freedom  should  in  no  cases  be  infringed,  but  there 
is  no  evidence  that  this  charge  was  widely  true.  It  is 
surely  significant  of  the  general  temper  of  the  South, 
and  most  honourable  to  it,  that  Stephens,  who  thus  strug- 
gled against  secession  at  that  moment,  was  chosen  Vice- 
President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

By  February  4,  1861,  the  States  of  Mississippi, 
Florida,  Alabama,  Georgia,  and  Louisiana  had  followed 
South  Carolina  by  passing  Ordinances  of  Secession,  and 
on  that  date  representatives  of  these  States  met  at  Mont- 
gomery in  Alabama  to  found  a  new  Confederacy.  Texas, 
where  considerable  resistance  was  offered  by  Governor 
Houston,  the  adventurous  leader  under  whom  that  State 
had  separated  from  Mexico,  was  in  process  of  passing  the 
like  Ordinance.  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  which  lie 
north  of  the  region  where  cotton  prevails,  and  with  them 
their  western  neighbour  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas,  yet 
further  west  and  separated  from  Tennessee  by  the  Mis- 
sissippi River,  did  not  secede  till  after  Lincoln's  inaugura- 
tion and  the  outbreak  of  war.  But  the  position  of  Vir- 
ginia (except  for  its  western  districts)  admitted  of  very 
little  doubt,  and  that  of  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina 
was  known  to  be  much  the  same.  Virginia  took  a  historic 
pride  in  the  Union,  and  its  interest  in  slavery  was  not 


200  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

quite  the  same  as  that  of  the  cotton  States,  yet  its  strongest 
social  ties  were  to  the  South.  This  State  was  now  en- 
gaged in  a  last  idle  attempt  to  keep  itself  and  other  border 
States  in  the  Union,  with  some  hope  also  that  the  de- 
parted States  might  return;  and  on  this  same  February 
6,  a  "  Peace  Convention,"  invited  by  Virginia  and  at- 
tended by  delegates  from  twenty-one  States,  met  at  Wash- 
ington with  ex-President  Tyler  in  the  chair;  but  for 
Virginia  it  was  all  along  a  condition  of  any  terms  of 
agreement  that  the  right  of  any  State  to  secede  should  be 
fully  acknowledged. 

The  Congress  of  the  seceding  States,  which  met  at 
Montgomery,  was  described  by  Stephens  as,  "  taken  all 
in  all,  the  noblest,  soberest,  most  intelligent,  and  most 
conservative  body  I  was  ever  in."  It  has  been  remarked 
that  Southern  politicians  of  the  agitator  type  were  not 
sent  to  it.  It  adopted  a  provisional  Constitution  modelled 
largely  upon  that  of  the  United  States.  Jefferson  Davis, 
who  had  retired  to  his  farm,  was  sent  for  to  become 
President;  Stephens,  as  already  said,  became  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  The  delegates  there  were  to  continue  in  session  for 
the  present  as  the  regular  Congress.  Whether  sobered  by 
the  thought  that  they  were  acting  in  the  eyes  of  the  world, 
or  in  accordance  with  their  own  prevailing  sentiment, 
these  men,  some  of  whom  had  before  urged  the  revival 
of  the  slave  trade,  now  placed  in  their  Constitution  a 
perpetual  prohibition  of  it,  and  when,  as  a  regular  legis- 
lature, they  afterwards  passed  a  penal  statute  which  car- 
ried out  this  intention  inadequately,  President  Davis 
conscientiously  vetoed  it  and  demanded  a  more  satis- 
factory measure.  At  his  inauguration  the  Southern  Presi- 
dent delivered  an  address,  typical  of  that  curious  blend- 
ing of  propriety  and  insincerity,  of  which  the  politics  of 
that  period  in  America  had  offered  many  examples.  It 
may  seem  incredible,  but  it  contained  no  word  of  slavery, 
but  recited  in  dignified  terms  how  the  South  had  been 
driven  to  separation  by  u  wanton  aggression  on  the  part 
of  others,"  and  after  it  had  "  vainly  endeavoured  to 
secure  tranquillity."  The  new  Southern  Congress  now 


SECESSION  201 

resolved  to  take  over  the  forts  and  other  property  in  the 
seceded  States  that  had  belonged  to  the  Union,  and  the 
first  Confederate  general,  Beauregard,  was  sent  to 
Charleston  to  hover  over  Fort  Sumter. 


3.  The  Inauguration  of  Lincoln. 

The  first  necessary  business  of  the  President-elect, 
while  he  watched  the  gathering  of  what  Emerson  named 
"  the  hurricane  in  which  he  was  called  to  the  helm,"  was 
to  construct  a  strong  Cabinet,  to  which  may  be  added 
the  seemingly  unnecessary  business  forced  upon  him  of 
dealing  with  a  horde  of  pilgrims  who  at  once  began 
visiting  him  to  solicit  some  office  or,  in  rarer  cases,  to 
press  their  disinterested  opinions.  His  Cabinet,  designed 
in  principle,  as  has  been  said,  while  he  was  waiting  in 
the  telegraph  office  for  election  returns,  was  actually  con- 
structed with  some  delay  and  hesitation.  Lincoln  could 
not  know  personally  all  the  men  he  invited  to  join  him, 
but  he  proceeded  with  the  view  of  conjoining  in  his  ad- 
ministration representatives  of  the  chief  shades  of  opinion 
which  in  this  critical  time  it  would  be  his  supreme  duty 
to  hold  together.  Not  only  different  shades  of  opinion, 
but  the  local  sentiment  of  different  districts  had  to  be 
considered;  he  once  complained  that  if  the  twelve 
Apostles  had  to  be  chosen  nowadays  the  principle  of 
locality  would  have  to  be  regarded;  but  at  this  time  there 
was  very  solid  reason  why  different  States  should  be  con- 
tented and  why  he  should  be  advised  as  to  their  feelings. 
His  own  chief  rivals  for  the  Presidency  offered  a  good 
choice  from  both  these  points  of  view.  They  were 
Seward  of  New  York,  Chase  of  Ohio,  Bates  of  Missouri, 
Cameron  of  Pennsylvania.  Seward  and  Chase  were  both 
able  and  outstanding  men :  the  former  was  in  a  sense  the 
old  Republican  leader,  but  was  more  and  more  coming  to 
be  regarded  as  the  typical  "  Conservative,"  or  cautious 
Republican;  Chase  on  the  other  hand  was  a  leader  of 
the  "  Radicals,"  who  were  "  stern  and  unbending  "  in 
their  attitude  towards  slavery  and  towards  the  South. 


202  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

These  two  must  be  got  and  kept  together  if  possible. 
Bates  was  a  good  and  capable  man  who  moreover  came 
from  Missouri,  a  border  slave  State,  where  his  influence 
was  much  to  be  desired.  He  became  Attorney-General. 
Cameron,  an  unfortunate  choice  as  it  turned  out,  was  a 
very  wealthy  business  man  of  Pennsylvania,  representa- 
tive of  the  weighty  Protectionist  influence  there.  After 
he  had  been  offered  office,  which  had  been  without  Lin- 
coln's authority  promised  him  in  the  Republican  Con- 
vention, Lincoln  was  dismayed  by  representations  that 
he  was  "a  bad,  corrupted  man";  he  wrote  a  curious 
letter  asking  Cameron  to  refuse  his  offer;  Cameron  in- 
stead produced  evidence  of  the  desire  of  Pennsylvania  for 
him;  Lincoln  stuck  to  his  offer;  the  old  Whig  element 
among  Republicans,  the  Protectionist  element,  and  above 
all,  the  friends  of  the  indispensable  Seward,  would  other- 
wise have  been  outweighted  in  the  Cabinet.  Cameron 
eventually  became  for  a  time  Secretary  of  War.  To 
these  Lincoln,  upon  somebody's  strong  representations, 
tried,  without  much  hope,  to  add  some  distinctly  Southern 
politician.  The  effort,  of  course,  failed.  Ultimately  the 
Cabinet  was  completed  by  the  addition  of  Caleb  Smith 
of  Indiana  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Gideon  Welles 
of  Connecticut  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  Mont- 
gomery Blair  of  Maryland  as  Postmaster-General. 
Welles,  with  the  guidance  of  a  brilliant  subordinate,  Fox, 
served  usefully,  was  very  loyal  to  Lincoln,  had  an  an- 
tipathy to  England  which  was  dangerous,  and  kept  very 
diligently  a  diary  for  which  we  may  be  grateful  now. 
Blair  was  a  vehement,  irresponsible  person  with  an 
influential  connection,  and,  which  was  important,  his 
influence  and  that  of  his  family  lay  in  Maryland  and 
other  border  slave  States.  Of  all  these  men,  Seward, 
Secretary  of  State — that  is,  Foreign  Minister  and  some- 
thing more — and  Chase,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  most 
concern  us.  Lincoln's  offer  to  Seward  was  made  and 
accepted  in  terms  that  did  credit  to  both  men,  and  Seward, 
still  smarting  at  his  own  defeat,  was  admirably  loyal.  But 
his  friends,  though  they  had  secured  the  appointment  of 


SECESSION  203 

Cameron  to  support  them,  thought  increasingly  ill  of  the 
prospects  of  a  Cabinet  which  included  the  Radical  Chase. 
On  the  very  night  before  his  inauguration  Lincoln  re- 
ceived from  Seward,  who  had  just  been  helping  to  revise 
his  Inaugural  Address,  a  letter  withdrawing  his  ac- 
ceptance of  office.  By  some  not  clearly  recorded  ex- 
ercise of  that  great  power  over  men,  which,  if  with  some 
failures,  was  generally  at  his  command,  he  forced  Seward 
to  see  that  the  unconditional  withdrawal  of  this  letter 
was  his  public  duty.  It  must  throughout  what  follows  be 
remembered  that  Lincoln's  first  and  most  constant  duty 
was  to  hold  together  the  jarring  elements  in  the  North 
which  these  jarring  elements  in  his  own  Cabinet  repre- 
sented; and  it  was  one  of  his  great  achievements  that  he 
kept  together,  for  as  long  as  was  needful,  able  but  dis- 
cordant public  servants  who  could  never  have  combined 
together  without  him. 

On  February  1 1,  1861,  Lincoln,  standing  on  the  gallery 
at  the  end  of  a  railway  car,  upon  the  instant  of  depar- 
ture from  the  home  to  which  he  never  returned,  said  to 
his  old  neighbours  (according  to  the  version  of  his  speech 
which  his  private  secretary  got  him  to  dictate  immediately 
after)  :  "  My  friends,  no  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can 
appreciate  my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To 
this  place,  and  the  kindness  of  these  people,  I  owe  every- 
thing. Here  I  have  lived  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old  man.  Here  my 
children  have  been  born  and  one  is  buried.  I  now  leave, 
not  knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I  may  return,  with 
a  task  before  me  greater  than  that  which  rested  upon 
Washington.  Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine 
Being  who  ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With 
that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail.  Trusting  in  Him  who  can 
go  with  me,  and  remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for 
good,  let  us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well.  To 
His  care  commending  you,  as  I  hope  in  your  prayers  you 
will  commend  me,  I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell." 

He  was,  indeed,  going  to  a  task  not  less  great  than 
Washington's,  but  he  was  going  to  it  with  a  preparation 


204  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  many  respects  far  inferior  to  his.  For  the  last  eight 
years  he  had  laboured  as  a  public  speaker,  and  in  a 
measure  as  a  party  leader,  and  had  displayed  and  de- 
veloped comprehension,  perhaps  unequalled,  of  some  of 
the  larger  causes  which  mould  public  affairs.  But,  except 
in  sheer  moral  discipline,  those  years  had  done  nothing  to 
supply  the  special  training  which  he  had  previously  lacked, 
for  high  executive  office.  In  such  office  at  such  a  time 
ready  decision  in  an  obscure  and  passing  situation  may 
often  be  a  not  less  requisite  than  philosophic  grasp  either 
of  the  popular  mind  or  of  eternal  laws.  The  powers 
which  he  had  hitherto  shown  would  still  be  needful  to 
him,  but  so  too  would  other  powers  which  he  had  never 
practised  in  any  comparable  position,  and  which  nature 
does  not  in  a  moment  supply.  Any  attempt  to  judge  of 
Lincoln's  Presidency — and  it  can  only  be  judged  at  all 
when  it  has  gone  on  some  way — must  take  account,  not 
perhaps  so  much  of  his  inexperience,  as  of  his  own 
reasonable  consciousness  of  it  and  his  great  anxiety  to  use 
the  advice  of  men  who  were  in  any  way  presumably  more 
competent. 

He  deliberately  delayed  his  arrival  in  Washington  and 
availed  himself  of  official  invitations  to  stay  at  four 
great  towns  and  five  State  capitals  which  he  could  con- 
veniently pass  on  his  way.  The  journey  abounded  in 
small  incidents  and  speeches,  some  of  which  exposed  him 
to  a  little  ridicule  in  the  press,  though  they  probably 
created  an  undercurrent  of  sympathy  for  him.  Near  one 
station  where  the  train  stopped  lived  a  little  girl  he  knew, 
who  had  recently  urged  upon  him  to  wear  a  beard  or 
whiskers.  To  this  dreadful  young  person,  and  to  that 
persistent  good  nature  of  his  which  was  now  and  then 
fatuous,  was  due  the  ill-designed  hairy  ornamentation 
which  during  his  Presidency  hid  the  really  beautiful 
modelling  of  his  jaw  and  chin.  He  enquired  for  her  at 
the  station,  had  her  fetched  from  the  crowd,  claimed  her 
praise  for  this  supposed  improvement,  and  kissed  her  in 
presence  of  the  press.  In  New  York  he  was  guilty  of  a 
more  sinister  and  tragic  misfeasance.  In  that  city,  where, 


SECESSION  .    205 

if  it  may  be  said  with  respect,  there  has  existed  from  of 
old  a  fashionable  circle  not  convinced  of  its  own  gentility 
and  insisting  the  more  rigorously  on  minor  decorum, 
Lincoln  went  to  the  opera,  and  history  still  deplores 
that  this  misguided  man  went  there  and  sat  there  with 
his  large  hands  in  black  kid  gloves.  Here  perhaps  it  is 
well  to  say  that  the  educated  world  of  the  Eastern 
States,  including  those  who  privately  deplored  Lincoln's 
supposed  unfitness,  treated  its  untried  chief  magistrate 
with  that  engrained  good  breeding  to  which  it  was  utterly 
indifferent  how  plain  a  man  he  might  be.  His  lesser 
speeches  as  he  went  were  unstudied  appeals  to  loyalty, 
with  very  simple  avowals  of  inadequacy  to  his  task,  and 
expressions  of  reliance  on  the  people's  support  when  he 
tried  to  do  his  duty.  To  a  man  who  can  sometimes  speak 
from  the  heart  and  to  the  heart  as  Lincoln  did  it  is  per- 
haps not  given  to  be  uniformly  felicitous.  Among  these 
speeches  was  that  delivered  at  Philadelphia,  which  has 
already  been  quoted,  but  most  of  them  were  not  con- 
sidered felicitous  at  the  time.  They  were  too  unpre- 
tentious. Moreover,  they  contained  sentences  which 
seemed  to  understate  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  in  a  way 
which  threw  doubt  on  his  own  serious  statesmanship. 
Whether  they  were  felicitous  or  not,  the  intention  of 
these  much-criticised  utterances  was  the  best  proof  of  his 
statesmanship.  He  would  appeal  to  the  steady  loyalty 
of  the  North,  but  he  was  not  going  to  arouse  its  passion. 
He  assumed  to  the  last  that  calm  reflection  might  prevail 
in  the  South,  which  was  menaced  by  nothing  but  "  an 
artificial  crisis."  He  referred  to  war  as  a  possibility,  but 
left  no  doubt  of  his  own  wish  by  all  means  to  avoid  it. 
'  There  will,"  he  said,  "  be  no  bloodshed  unless  it  be 
forced  on  the  Government.  The  Government  will  not 
use  force  unless  force  is  used  against  it." 

Before  he  passed  through  *  Baltimore  he  received 
earnest  communications  from  Seward  and  from  General 
Scott.  Each  had  received  trustworthy  information  of 
a  plot,  which  existed,  to  murder  him  in  that  city.  Owing 
to  their  warnings  he  went  through  Baltimore  secretly  at 


206  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

night,  so  that  his  arrival  in  Washington,  on  February  23, 
was  unexpected.  This  was  his  obvious  duty,  and  nobody 
who  knew  him  was  ever  in  doubt  of  his  personal  intre- 
pidity; but  of  course  it  helped  to  damp  the  effect  of  what 
many  people  would  have  been  glad  to  regard  as  a 
triumphal  progress. 

On  March  4,  1861,  old  Buchanan  came  in  his  carriage 
to  escort  his  successor  to  the  inaugural  ceremony,  where 
it  was  the  ironical  fate  of  Chief  Justice  Taney  to  ad- 
minister the  oath  to  a  President  who  had  already  gone 
far  to  undo  his  great  work.  Yet  a  third  notable  Democrat 
was  there  to  do  a  pleasant  little  act.  Douglas,  Lincoln's 
defeated  rival,  placed  himself  with  a  fine  ostentation  by 
his  side,  and,  observing  that  he  was  embarrassed  as  to 
where  to  put  his  new  tall  hat  and  preposterous  gold- 
knobbed  cane,  took  charge  of  these  encumbrances  before 
the  moment  arrived  for  the  most  eagerly  awaited  of  all 
his  speeches.  Lincoln  had  submitted  his  draft  of  his 
"  First  Inaugural "  to  Seward,  and  this  draft  with 
Seward's  abundant  suggestions  of  amendment  has  been 
preserved.  It  has  considerable  literary  interest,  and, 
by  the  readiness  with  which  most  of  Seward's  suggestions 
were  adopted,  and  the  decision  with  which  some,  and 
those  not  the  least  important,  were  set  aside  by  Lincoln, 
it  illustrates  well  the  working  relation  which,  after  one 
short  struggle,  was  to  be  established  between  these  two 
men.  By  Seward's  advice  Lincoln  added  to  an  otherwise 
dry  speech  some  concluding  paragraphs  of  emotional  ap- 
peal. The  last  sentence  of  the  speech,  which  alone  is 
much  remembered,  is  Seward's  in  the  first  conception  of 
it,  Seward's  in  the  slightly  hackneyed  phrase  with  which 
it  ends,  Lincoln's  alone  in  the  touch  of  haunting  beauty 
which  is  on  it. 

His  "First  Inaugural "  was  by  general  confession  an 
able  state  paper,  setting  forth  simply  and  well  a  situa- 
tion with  which  we  are  now  familiar.  It  sets  out  dis- 
passionately the  state  of  the  controversy  on  slavery,  lays 
down  with  brief  argument  the  position  that  the  Union  is 
indissoluble,  and  proceeds  to  define  the  duty  of  the  Gov- 


SECESSION  207 

ernment  in  face  of  an  attempt  to  dissolve  it.  "The 
power,"  he  said,  "  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold, 
occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and  places  belonging  to 
the  Government,  and  to  collect  the  duties  on  imports; 
but  beyond  what  may  be  necessary  for  these  objects  there 
will  be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or  among 
the  people  anywhere.  The  mails,  unless  repelled,  will 
continue  to  be  furnished  in  all  parts  of  the  Union."  He 
proceeded  to  set  out  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  im- 
possibility of  real  separation;  the  intimate  relations  be- 
tween the  peoples  of  the  several  States  must  still  con- 
tinue; they  would  still  remain  for  adjustment  after  any 
length  of  warfare;  they  could  be  far  better  adjusted  in 
Union  than  in  enmity.  He  concluded:  "In  your  hands, 
my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in  mine,  is  the 
momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  Government  will  not 
assail  you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  your- 
selves the  aggressors.  I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not 
enemies  but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though 
passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds 
of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching 
from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living 
heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet 
swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as 
surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

4.  The  Outbreak  of  War. 

Upon  the  newly-inaugurated  President  there  now 
descended  a  swarm  of  office-seekers.  The  Republican 
party  had  never  been  in  power  before,  and  these  patriotic 
people  exceeded  in  number  and  voracity  those  that  had 
assailed  any  American  President  before.  To  be  acces- 
sible to  all  such  was  the  normal  duty  of  a  President;  it 
was  perhaps  additionally  incumbent  on  him  at  this  time. 
When  in  the  course  of  nature  the  number  of  office-seekers 
abated,  they  were  succeeded,  as  will  be  seen,  by  suppli- 
cants of  another  kind,  whose  petitions  were  often  really 
harrowing.  The  horror  of  this  enduring  visitation  has 


208  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

been  described  by  Artemus  Ward  in  terms  which  Lincoln 
himself  could  not  have  improved  upon.  His  classical 
treatment  of  the  subject  is  worth  serious  reference;  for 
it  should  be  realised  that  Lincoln,  who  had  both  to  learn 
his  new  trade  of  statecraft  and  to  exercise  it  in  a  terrible 
emergency,  did  so  with  a  large  part  of  each  day  neces- 
sarily consumed  by  worrying  and  distasteful  tasks  of  a 
much  paltrier  kind. 

On  the  day  after  the  Inauguration  came  word  from 
Major  Anderson  at  Fort  Sumter  that  he  could  only  hold 
out  a  few  weeks  longer  unless  reinforced  and  provisioned. 
With  it  came  to  Lincoln  the  opinion  of  General  Scott, 
that  to  relieve  Fort  Sumter  now  would  require  a  force  of 
20,000  men,  which  did  not  exist.  The  Cabinet  was  sum- 
moned with  military  and  naval  advisers.  The  sailors 
thought  they  could  throw  men  and  provisions  into  Fort 
Sumter;  the  soldiers  said  the  ships  would  be  destroyed 
by  the  Confederate  batteries.  Lincoln  asked  his  Cabinet 
whether,  assuming  it  to  be  feasible,  it  was  politically  ad- 
visable now  to  provision  Fort  Sumter.  Blair  said  yes 
emphatically;  Chase  said  yes  in  a  qualified  way.  The 
other  five  members  of  the  Cabinet  said  no;  General  Scott 
had  given  his  opinion,  as  on  a  military  question,  that  the 
fort  should  now  be  evacuated;  they  argued  that  the  evacu- 
ation of  this  one  fort  would  be  recognised  by  the  country 
as  merely  a  military  necessity  arising  from  the  neglect 
of  the  last  administration.  Lincoln  reserved  his  decision. 

Let  us  conceive  the  effect  of  a  decision  to  evacuate  Fort 
Sumter.  South  Carolina  had  for  long  claimed  it  as  a 
due  acknowledgment  of  its  sovereign  and  independent 
rights,  and  for  no  other  end;  the  Confederacy  now 
claimed  it  and  its  first  act  had  been  to  send  Beauregard 
to  threaten  the  fort.  Even  Buchanan  had  ended  by  with- 
standing these  claims.  The  assertion  that  he  would  hold 
these  forts  had  been  the  gist  of  Lincoln's  Inaugural.  This 
was  the  one  fort  that  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  Northern 
public  or  the  Southern  public  either;  they  probably  never 
realised  that  there  were  other  forts,  Fort  Pickens,  for 
example,  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  which  the  administra- 


SECESSION  209 

tion  was  prepared  to  defend.  And  now  it  was  proposed 
that  Lincoln,  who  had  put  down  his  foot  with  a  bang 
yesterday,  should  take  it  up  with  a  shuffle  to-day.  And 
Lincoln  reserved  his  judgment;  and,  which  is  much  more, 
went  on  reserving  it  till  the  question  nearly  settled  itself 
to  his  disgrace. 

Lincoln  lacked  here,  it  would  seem,  not  by  any  means 
the  qualities  of  the  trained  administrator,  but  just  that 
rough  perception  and  vigour  which  untaught  genius  might 
be  supposed  to  possess.  The  passionate  Jackson  (who, 
by  the  way,  was  a  far  more  educated  man  in  the  respects 
which  count)  would  not  have  acted  so.  Lincoln,  it  is 
true,  had  declared  that  he  would  take  no  provocative 
step — "  In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-country- 
men, and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil 
war,"  and  the  risk  which  he  would  have  taken  by  over- 
ruling that  day  the  opinion  of  the  bulk  of  his  Cabinet 
based  on  that  of  his  chief  military  adviser  is  obvious,  but 
it  seems  to  have  been  a  lesser  risk  than  he  did  take  in 
delaying  so  long  to  overrule  his  Cabinet.  It  is  precisely 
characteristic  of  his  strength  and  of  his  weakness  that 
he  did  not  at  once  yield  to  his  advisers;  that  he  long  con- 
tinued weighing  the  matter  undisturbed  by  the  danger 
of  delay;  that  he  decided  as  soon  as  and  no  sooner  than 
he  felt  sure  as  to  the  political  results,  which  alone  here 
mattered,  for  the  military  consequences  amounted  to 
nothing. 

This  story  was  entangled  from  the  first  with  another 
difficult  story.  Commissioners  from  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy came  to  Washington  and  sought  interviews  with 
Seward;  they  came  to  treat  for  the  recognition  of  the 
Confederacy  and  the  peaceful  surrender  of  forts  and  the 
like  within  its  borders.  Meanwhile  the  action  of  Virginia 
was  in  the  balance,  and  the  "  Peace  Convention,"  sum- 
moned by  Virginia,  still  "  threshing  again,"  as  Lowell 
said,  "  the  already  twice-threshed  straw  of  debate."  The 
action  of  Virginia  and  of  other  border  States,  about  which 
Lincoln  was  intensely  solicitous,  would  certainly  depend 
upon  the  action  of  the  Government  towards  the  States 


a  io  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  had  already  seceded.  Might  it  not  be  well  that  the 
Government  should  avoid  immediate  conflict  with  South 
Carolina  about  Fort  Sumter,  though  conflict  with  the 
Confederacy  about  Fort  Pickens  and  the  rest  would  still 
impend?  Was  it  not  possible  that  conflict  could  be  staved 
off  till  an  agreement  could  be  reached  with  Virginia  and 
the  border  States,  which  would  induce  the  seceded  States 
to  return?  These  questions  were  clearly  absurd,  but  they 
were  as  clearly  natural,  and  they  greatly  exercised  Seward. 
Disappointed  at  not  being  President  and  equally  dis- 
turbed at  the  prospect  of  civil  war,  but  still  inclined  to 
large  and  sanguine  hopes,  he  was  rather  anxious  to  take 
things  out  of  Lincoln's  hands  and  very  anxious  to  serve 
his  country  as  the  great  peacemaker.  Indirect  negotia- 
tions now  took  place  between  him  and  the  Southern  Com- 
missioners, who  of  course  could  not  be  officially  recog- 
nised, through  the  medium  of  two  Supreme  Court 
Judges,  especially  one  Campbell,  who  was  then  in 
Washington.  Seward  was  quite  loyal  to  Lincoln  and 
told  him  in  a  general  way  what  he  was  doing;  he  was 
also  candid  with  Campbell  and  his  friends,  and  explained 
to  them  his  lack  of  authority,  but  he  talked  freely  and 
rashly  of  what  he  hoped  to  bring  about.  Lincoln  gave 
Seward  some  proper  cautions  and  left  him  all  proper 
freedom;  but  it  is  possible  that  he  once  told  Douglas 
that  he  intended,  at  that  moment,  to  evacuate  Fort  Sum- 
ter. The  upshot  of  the  matter  is  that  the  decision  of 
the  Government  was  delayed  by  negotiations  which,  as  it 
ought  to  have  known,  could  come  to  nothing,  and  that 
the  Southern  Government  and  the  Commissioners,  after 
they  had  got  home,  thought  they  had  been  deceived  in 
these  negotiations. 

Discussions  were  still  proceeding  as  to  Fort  Sumter 
when  a  fresh  difficulty  arose  for  Lincoln,  but  one  which 
enabled  him  to  become  henceforth  master  in  his  Cabinet. 
The  strain  of  Seward's  position  upon  a  man  inclined  to 
be  vain  and  weak  can  easily  be  imagined,  but  the  sudden 
vagary  in  which  it  now  resulted  was  surprising.  Upon 
April  i  he  sent  to  Lincoln  "  Some  Thoughts  for  the  Presi- 


SECESSION  211 

dent's  Consideration."  In  this  paper,  after  deploring 
what  he  described  as  the  lack  of  any  policy  so  far,  and 
defining,  in  a  way  that  does  not  matter,  his  attitude  as 
to  the  forts  in  the  South,  he  proceeded  thus :  "  I  would 
demand  explanations  from  Great  Britain  and  Russia, 
and  send  agents  into  Canada,  Mexico,  and  Central 
America,  to  raise  a  vigorous  spirit  of  independence  on 
this  continent  against  European  intervention,  and  if 
satisfactory  explanations  are  not  received  from  Spain  and 
France,  would  convene  Congress  and  declare  war 
against  them."  In  other  words,  Seward  would  seek  to 
end  all  domestic  dissensions  by  suddenly  creating  out  of 
nothing  a  dazzling  foreign  policy.  But  this  was  not  the 
only  point,  even  if  it  was  the  main  point;  he  proceeded: 
"  Either  the  President  must  do  it "  (that  is  the  sole  con- 
duct of  this  policy)  "  himself,  or  devolve  it  on  some 
member  of  his  Cabinet.  It  is  not  my  especial  province. 
But  I  neither  seek  to  evade  nor  assume  responsibility." 
In  other  words,  Seward  put  himself  forward  as  the  sole 
director  of  the  Government.  In  his  brief  reply  Lincoln 
made  no  reference  whatever  to  Seward's  amazing  pro- 
gramme. He  pointed  out  that  the  policy  so  far,  as  to 
which  Seward  had  complained,  was  one  in  which  Seward 
had  entirely  concurred.  As  to  the  concluding  demand 
that  some  one  man,  and  that  man  Seward,  should  control 
all  policy,  he  wrote,  "  If  this  must  be  done,  I  must  do  it. 
When  a  general  line  of  policy  is  adopted,  I  apprehend 
there  is  no  danger  of  its  being  changed  without  good 
reason,  or  continuing  to  be  a  subject  of  unnecessary  de- 
bate; still,  upon  points  arising  in  its  progress  I  wish,  and 
suppose  I  am  entitled  to  have,  the  advice  of  all  the 
Cabinet."  Seward  was  not  a  fool,  far  from  it;  he  was 
one  of  the  ablest  men  in  America,  only  at  that  moment 
strained  and  excited  beyond  the  limits  of  his  good  sense. 
Lincoln's  quiet  answer  sobered  him  then  and  for  ever 
after.  He  showed  a  generous  mind;  he  wrote  to  his 
wife  soon  after:  "Executive  force  and  vigour  are  rare 
qualities;  the  President  is  the  best  of  us."  And  Lincoln's 
generosity  was  no  less;  his  private  secretary,  Nicolay, 


212  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

saw  these  papers;  but  no  other  man  knew  anything  of 
Seward's  abortive  rebellion  against  Lincoln  till  after  they 
both  were  dead.  The  story  needs  no  explanation,  but 
the  more  attentively  all  the  circumstances  are  considered, 
the  more  Lincoln's  handling  of  this  emergency,  which 
threatened  the  ruin  of  his  Government,  throws  into  shade 
the  weakness  he  had  hitherto  shown. 

Lincoln  was  thus  in  a  stronger  position  when  he  finally 
decided  as  to  Fort  Sumter.  It  is  unnecessary  to  follow 
the  repeated  consultations  that  took  place.  There  were 
preparations  for  possible  expeditions  both  to  Fort  Sumter 
and  to  Fort  Pickens,  and  various  blunders  about  them, 
and  Seward  made  some  trouble  by  officious  interference 
about  them.  An  announcement  was  sent  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  South  Carolina  that  provisions  would  be  sent 
to  Fort  Sumter  and  he  was  assured  that  if  this  was  un- 
opposed no  further  steps  would  be  taken.  What  chiefly 
concerns  us  is  that  the  eventual  decision  to  send  provi- 
sions but  not  troops  to  Fort  Sumter  was  Lincoln's  de- 
cision; but  that  it  was  not  taken  till  after  Senators  and 
Congressmen  had  made  clear  to  him  that  Northern 
opinion  would  support  him.  It  was  the  right  decision, 
for  it  conspicuously  avoided  the  appearance  of  provo- 
cation, while  it  upheld  the  right  of  the  Union ;  but  it  was 
taken  perilously  late,  and  the  delay  exposed  the  Govern- 
ment to  the  risk  of  a  great  humiliation. 

An  Alabama  gentleman  had  urged  Jefferson  Davis 
that  the  impending  struggle  must  not  be  delayed.  "  Un- 
less," he  said,  "  you  sprinkle  blood  in  the  face  of  the 
people  of  Alabama,  they  will  be  back  in  the  old  Union 
in  ten  days."  There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  gentleman's  statement  as  to  the  probable  collapse 
of  the  South  was  mere  rhetoric,  but  it  seems  that  his 
advice  led  to  orders  being  sent  to  Beauregard  to  reduce 
Fort  Sumter.  Beauregard  sent  a  summons  to  Ander- 
son; Anderson,  now  all  but  starved  out,  replied  that 
unless  he  received  supplies  or  instructions  he  would  sur- 
render on  April  15.  Whether  by  Beauregard's  orders 
or  through  some  misunderstanding,  the  Confederate 


SECESSION  213 

batteries  opened  fire  on  Fort  Sumter  on  April  12.  Fort 
Sumter  became  untenable  on  the  next  day,  when  the 
relief  ships,  which  Anderson  had  been  led  to  expect 
sooner,  but  which  could  in  no  case  really  have  helped 
him,  were  just  appearing  in  the  offing.  Anderson  very 
properly  capitulated.  On  Sunday,  April  14,  1861,  he 
marched  out  with  the  honours  of  war.  The  Union  flag 
had  been  fired  upon  in  earnest  by  the  Confederates,  and, 
leaving  Virginia  and  the  States  that  went  with  it  to  join 
the  Confederacy  if  they  chose,  the  North  sprang  to  arms. 
In  the  events  which  had  led  up  to  the  outbreak  of 
war  Abraham  Lincoln  had  played  a  part  more  admirable 
and  more  decisive  in  its  effect  than  his  countrymen  could 
have  noted  at  the  time  or  perhaps  have  appreciated  since. 
He  was  confronted  now  with  duties  requiring  mental 
gifts  of  a  different  kind  from  those  which  he  had  hitherto 
displayed,  and  with  temptations  to  which  he  had  not  yet 
been  exposed.  In  a  general  sense  the  greatness  of  mind 
and  heart  which  he  unfolded  under  fierce  trial  does  not 
need  to  be  demonstrated  to-day.  Yet  in  detail  hardly  an 
action  of  his  Presidency  is  exempt  from  controversy;  nor 
is  his  many-sided  character  one  of  those  which  men 
readily  flatter  themselves  that  they  understand.  There 
are  always,  moreover,  those  to  whom  it  is  a  marvel  how 
any  great  man  came  by  his  name.  The  particular  trib- 
ute, which  in  the  pages  that  follow  it  is  desired  to  pay 
to  him,  consists  in  the  careful  examination  of  just  those 
actions  and  just  those  qualities  of  his  upon  which  candid 
detraction  has  in  fact  fastened,  or  on  which  candid  ad- 
miration has  pronounced  with  hesitancy. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE    CONDITIONS   OF   THE   WAR 

IN  recounting  the  history  of  Lincoln's  Presidency,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  mark  the  course  of  the  Civil  War 
stage  by  stage  as  we  proceed.  There  are,  however,  one 
or  two  general  features  of  the  contest  with  which  it 
may  be  well  to  deal  by  way  of  preface. 

It  has  seldom  happened  that  a  people  entering  upon  a 
great  war  have  understood  at  the  outset  what  the  char- 
acter of  that  war  would  be.  When  the  American  Civil 
War  broke  out  the  North  expected  an  easy  victory,  but, 
as  disappointment  came  soon  and  was  long  maintained, 
many  clever  people  adopted  the  opinion,  which  early 
prevailed  in  Europe,  that  there  was  no  possibility  of 
their  success  at  all.  At  the  first  the  difficulty  of  the  task 
was  unrecognised;  under  early  and  long-sustained  dis- 
appointment the  strength  by  which  those  difficulties  could 
be  overcome  began  to  be  despaired  of  without  reason. 

The  North,  after  several  slave  States,  which  were  at 
first  doubtful,  had  adhered  to  it,  had  more  than  double 
the  population  of  the  South;  of  the  Southern  population 
a  very  large  part  were  slaves,  who,  though  industrially 
useful,  could  not  be  enlisted.  In  material  resources  the 
superiority  of  the  North  was  no  less  marked,  and  its 
material  wealth  grew  during  the  war  to  a  greater  extent 
than  had  perhaps  ever  happened  to  any  other  belligerent 
power.  These  advantages  were  likely  to  be  decisive  in 
the  end,  if  the  North  could  and  would  endure  to  the  end. 
But  at  the  very  beginning  these  advantages  simply  did 
not  tell  at  all,  for  the  immediately  available  military 
force  of  the  North  was  insignificant,  and  that  of  the 
South  clearly  superior  to  it;  and  even  when  they  began 
to  tell,  it  was  bound  to  be  very  long  before  their  full 
weight  could  be  brought  to  bear.  And  the  object  which 

214 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  215 

was  to  be  obtained  was  supremely  difficult  of  attainment. 
It  was  not  a  defeat  of  the  South  which  might  result  in 
the  alteration  of  a  frontier,  the  cession  of  some  Colonies, 
the  payment  of  an  indemnity,  and  such  like  matters;  it 
was  a  conquest  of  the  South  so  complete  that  the  Union 
could  be  restored  on  a  firmer  basis  than  before.  Any 
less  result  than  this  would  be  failure  in  the  war.  And 
the  country,  to  be  thus  completely  conquered  by  an  un- 
military  people  of  nineteen  millions,  was  of  enormous 
extent :  leaving  out  of  account  the  huge  outlying  State  of 
Texas,  which  is  larger  than  Germany,  the  remaining 
Southern  States  which  joined  in  the  Confederacy  have 
an  area  somewhat  larger  than  that  of  Germany,  Austria- 
Hungary,  Holland,  and  Belgium  put  together;  and  this 
great  region  had  no  industrial  centres  or  other  points  of 
such  great  strategic  importance  that  by  the  occupation 
of  them  the  remaining  area  could  be  dominated.  The 
feat  which  the  Northern  people  eventually  achieved  has 
been  said  by  the  English  historians  of  the  war  (perhaps 
with  some  exaggeration)  to  have  been  "  a  greater  one 
than  that  which  Napoleon  attempted  to  his  own  undoing 
when  he  invaded  Russia  in  1812." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  South  was  in  some  respects 
very  favourably  placed  for  resisting  invasion  from  the 
North.  The  Southern  forces  during  most  of  the  war 
were,  in  the  language  of  military  writers,  operating  on 
interior  lines;  that  is,  the  different  portions  of  them  lay 
nearer  to  one  another  than  did  the  different  portions  of 
the  Northern  forces,  and  could  be  more  quickly  brought 
to  converge  on  the  same  point;  the  country  abounded  in 
strong  positions  for  defence  which  could  be  held  by  a 
relatively  small  force,  while  in  every  invading  movement 
the  invaders  had  to  advance  long  distances  from  the 
base,  thus  exposing  their  lines  of  communication  to  at- 
tack. The  advantage  of  this  situation,  if  competent  use 
were  made  of  it,  was  bound  to  go  very  far  towards  com- 
pensating for  inferiority  of  numbers;  the  North  could 
not  make  its  superior  numbers  on  land  tell  in  any  rapidly 
decisive  fashion  without  exposing  itself  to  dangerous 


216  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

counter-strokes.  In  naval  strength  its  superiority  was 
asserted  almost  from  the  first,  and  by  cutting  off  foreign 
supplies  caused  the  Southern  armies  to  suffer  severe  pri- 
vations before  the  war  was  half  through;  but  its  full 
effect  could  only  be  produced  very  slowly.  Thus,  if  its 
people  were  brave  and  its  leaders  capable,  the  South  was 
by  no  means  in  so  hopeless  a  case  as  might  at  first  have 
appeared;  with  good  fortune  it  might  hope  to  strike  its 
powerful  antagonist  some  deadly  blow  before  that  an- 
tagonist could  bring  its  strength  to  bear;  and  even  if  this 
hope  failed,  a  sufficiently  tenacious  defence  might  well 
wear  down  the  patience  of  the  North. 

As  soldiers  the  Southerners  started  with  a  superiority 
which  the*  Northerners  could  only  overtake  slowly.  If 
each  people  were  taken  in  the  mass,  the  proportion  of 
Southerners  bred  to  an  outdoor  life  was  higher.  Gener- 
ally speaking,  if  not  exactly  more  frugal,  they  were  far 
less  used  to  living  comfortably.  Above  all,  all  classes 
of  people  among  them  were  still  accustomed  to  think  of 
fighting  as  a  normal  and  suitable  occupation  for  a  man; 
while  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  North  thought  of 
man  as  meant  for  business,  and  its  higher  temper  was 
apt  to  think  of  fighting  as  odious  and  war  out  of  date. 
This,  like  the  other  advantages  of  the  South,  was  transi- 
tory; before  very  long  Northerners  who  became  soldiers 
at  a  sacrifice  of  inclination,  from  the  highest  spirit  of 
patriotism  or  in  the  methodic  temper  in  which  business 
has  to  be  done,  would  become  man  for  man  as  good 
soldiers  as  the  Southerners;  but  the  original  superiority 
of  the  Southerners  would  continue  to  have  a  moral  effect 
in  their  own  ranks  and  on  the  mind  of  the  enemy,  more 
especially  of  the  enemy's  generals,  even  after  its  cause 
had  ceased  to  exist;  and  herein  the  military  advantage  of 
the  South  was  undoubtedly,  through  the  first  half  of  the 
war,  considerable. 

In  the  matter  of  leadership  the  South  had  certain  very 
real  and  certain  other  apparent  but  probably  delusive 
advantages.  The  United  States  had  no  large  number  of 
trained  military  officers!  still  capable  of  active  service. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  217 

The  armies  of  the  North  and  South  alike  had  to  be 
commanded  and  staffed  to  a  great  extent  by  men  who 
first  studied  their  profession  in  that  war;  and  the  lack 
of  ripe  military  judgment  was  likely  to  be  felt  most  in 
the  higher  commands  where  the  forces  to  be  employed 
and  co-ordinated  were  largest.  The  South  secured  what 
may  be  called  its  fair  proportion  of  the  comparatively 
few  officers,  but  it  was  of  tremendous  moment  that, 
among  the  officers  who,  when  the  war  began,  were  recog- 
nised as  competent,  two,  who  sadly  but  in  simple  loyalty 
to  the  State  of  Virginia  took  the  Southern  side,  were 
men  of  genius.  The  advantages  of  the  South  would  have 
been  no  advantages  without  skill  and  resolution  to  make 
use  of  them.  The  main  conditions  of  the  war — the  vast 
space,  the  difficulty  in  all  parts  of  it  of  moving  troops, 
the  generally  low  level  of  military  knowledge — were  all 
such  as  greatly  enhance  the  opportunities  of  the  most 
gifted  commander.  Lee  and  "  Stonewall  "  Jackson  thus 
became,  the  former  throughout  the  war,  the  latter  till 
he  was  killed  in  the  summer  of  1863,  factors  of  primary 
importance  in  the  struggle.  Wolseley,  who  had,  besides 
studying  their  record,  conversed  both  with  Lee  and  with 
Moltke,  thought  Lee  even  greater  than  Moltke,  and  the 
military  writers  of  our  day  speak  of  him  as  one  of  the 
great  commanders  of  history.  As  to  Jackson,  Lee's 
belief  in  him  is  sufficient  testimony  to  his  value.  And  the 
good  fortune  of  the  South  was  not  confined  to  these  two 
signal  instances.  Most  of  the  Southern  generals  who 
appeared  early  in  the  war  could  be  retained  in  important 
commands  to  the  end. 

The  South  might  have  seemed  at  first  equally  fortu- 
nate in  the  character  of  the  Administration  at  the  back 
of  the  generals.  An  ascendency  was  at  once  conceded  to 
Jefferson  Davis,  a  tried  political  leader,  to  which  Lincoln 
had  to  win  his  way,  and  the  past  experiences  of  the  two 
men  had  been  very  different.  The  operations  of  war 
in  which  Lincoln  had  taken  part  were  confined,  according 
to  his  own  romantic  account  in  a  speech  in  Congress,  to 
stealing  ducks  and  onions  from  the  civil  population;  his 


218  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Ministers  were  as  ignorant  in  the  matter  as  he;  their 
military  adviser,  Scott,  was  so  infirm  that  he  had  soon 
to  retire,  and  it  proved  most  difficult  to  replace  him. 
Jefferson  Davis,  on  the  other  hand,  started  with  knowl- 
edge of  affairs,  including  military  affairs;  he  had  been 
Secretary  of  War  in  Pierce's  Cabinet  and  Chairman  of 
the  Senate  Committee  on  War  since  then;  above  all,  he 
had  been  a  soldier  and  had  commanded  a  regiment  with 
some  distinction  in  the  Mexican  War.  It  is  thought  that 
he  would  have  preferred  a  military  command  to  the 
Presidency  of  the  Confederacy,  and  as  his  own  experi- 
ence of  actual  war  was  as  great  as  that  of  his  gen- 
erals, he  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  a  disposition  to  inter- 
fere with  them  at  the  beginning.  But  military  historians, 
while  criticising  (perhaps  a  little  hastily)  all  Lincoln's 
interventions  in  the  affairs  of  war  up  to  the  time  when 
he  found  generals  whom  he  trusted,  insist  that  Davis' 
systematic  interference  was  far  more  harmful  to  his 
cause;  and  Wolseley,  who  watched  events  closely  from 
Canada  and  who  visited  the  Southern  Army  in  1863,  is 
most  emphatic  in  this  opinion.  He  interfered  with  Lee 
to  an  extent  which  nothing  but  Lee's  devoted  friendship 
and  loyalty  could  have  made  tolerable.  He  put  himself 
into  relations  of  dire  hostility  with  Joseph  Johnston, 
and  in  1864  suspended  him  in  the  most  injudicious  man- 
ner. Above  all,  when  the  military  position  of  the  South 
had  begun  to  be  acutely  perilous,  Jefferson  Davis  neither 
devised  for  himself,  nor  allowed  his  generals  to  devise, 
any  bold  policy  by  which  the  chance  that  still  remained 
could  be  utilised.  His  energy  of  will  showed  itself  in  the 
end  in  nothing  but  a  resolution  to  protract  bloodshed 
after  it  had  certainly  become  idle. 

If  we  turn  to  the  political  conditions,  on  which,  in  any 
but  a  short  war,  so  much  depends,  the  South  will  appear 
to  have  had  great  advantages.  Its  people  were  more 
richly  endowed  than  the  mixed  and  crudely  democratic 
multitude  of  the  North,  in  the  traditional  aptitude  for 
commanding  or  obeying  which  enables  people  to  pull 
together  in  a  crisis.  And  they  were  united  in  a  cause 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  219 

such  as  would  secure  the  sustained  loyalty  of  any  ordinary 
people  under  any  ordinary  leader.  For,  though  it 
was  nothing  but  slavery  that  led  to  their  assertion 
of  independence,  from  the  moment  that  they  found 
themselves  involved  in  war,  they  were  fighting  for 
a  freedom  to  which  they  felt  themselves  entitled,  and 
for  nothing  else  whatever.  A  few  successful  en- 
counters at  the  start  tempted  the  ordinary  Southerner 
to  think  himself  a  better  man  than  the  ordinary  North- 
erner, even  as  the  Southern  Congressmen  felt  themselves 
superior  to  the  persons  whom  the  mistaken  democracy 
of  the  North  too  frequently  elected.  This  claim  of  in- 
dependence soon  acquired  something  of  the  fierce  pride 
that  might  have  been  felt  by  an  ancient  nation.  But  it 
would  have  been  impossible  that  the  Northern  people  as 
a  whole  should  be  similarly  possessed  by  the  cause  in 
which  they  fought.  They  did  not  seem  to  be  fighting 
for  their  own  liberty,  and  they  would  have  hated  to  think 
that  they  were  fighting  for  conquest.  They  were  fighting 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  national  unity  which  they  held 
dear.  The  question  how  far  it  was  worth  fighting  a 
formidable  enemy  for  the  sake  of  eventual  unity  with  him, 
was  bound  to  present  itself.  Thus,  far  from  wondering 
that  the  cause  of  the  Union  aroused  no  fuller  devotion 
than  it  did  in  the  whole  lump  of  the  Northern  people,  we 
may  wonder  that  it  inspired  with  so  lofty  a  patriotism 
men  and  women  in  every  rank  of  life  who  were  able  to 
leaven  that  lump.  But  the  political  element  in  this  war 
was  of  such  importance  as  to  lead  to  a  startling  result; 
the  North  came  nearest  to  yielding  at  a  time  when  in  a 
military  sense  its  success  had  become  sure.  To  preserve 
a  united  North  was  the  greatest  and  one  of  the  hardest 
of  the  duties  of  President  Lincoln. 

To  a  civilian  reader  the  history  of  the  war,  in  spite  of 
the  picturesque  incidents  of  many  battles,  may  easily  be 
made  dreary.  Till  far  on  in  the  lengthy  process  of  sub- 
jecting the  South,  we  might  easily  become  immersed  in 
some  futile  story  of  how  General  X.  was  superseded  by 
General  Y.  in  a  command,  for  which  neither  discovered 


220  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

any  purpose  but  that  of  not  co-operating  with  General 
Z.  And  this  impression  is  not  merely  due  to  our  failure 
to  understand  the  difficulties  which  confronted  these 
gallant  officers.  The  dearth  of  trained  military  faculty, 
which  was  felt  at  the  outset,  could  only  be  made  good  by 
the  training  which  the  war  itself  supplied.  Such  com- 
manders as  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheridan  not  only 
could  not  have  been  recognised  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war;  they  were  not  then  the  soldiers  that  they  afterwards 
became.  And  the  want  was  necessarily  very  serious  in 
the  case  of  the  higher  commands  which  required  the 
movement  of  large  forces,  the  control  of  subordinates 
each  of  whom  must  have  a  wide  discretion,  and  the 
energy  of  intellect  and  will  necessary  for  resolving  the 
more  complex  problems  of  strategy.  We  are  called  upon 
to  admire  upon  both  sides  the  devotion  of  forgotten 
thousands,  and  to  admire  upon  the  side  of  the  South  the 
brilliant  and  daring  operations  by  which  in  so  many  bat- 
tles Lee  and  Jackson  defeated  superior  forces.  On  the 
Northern  side,  later  on,  great  generals  came  to  view,  but 
it  is  in  the  main  a  different  sort  of  achievement  which 
we  are  called  upon  to  appreciate.  An  Administration 
appointed  to  direct  a  stupendous  operation  of  conquest 
was  itself  of  necessity  ill  prepared  for  such  a  task;  behind 
it  were  a  Legislature  and  a  public  opinion  equally  ill  pre- 
pared to  support  and  to  assist  it.  There  were  in  its  mili- 
tary service  many  intelligent  and  many  enterprising  men, 
but  none,  at  first,  so  combining  intelligence  and  enter- 
prise that  he  could  grapple  with  any  great  responsibility 
or  that  the  civil  power  would  have  been  warranted  in 
reposing  complete  confidence  in  him.  The  history  of  the 
war  has  to  be  recounted  in  this  volume  chiefly  with  a  view 
to  these  difficulties  of  the  Administration. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  the  war  would, 
in  any  military  study  of  it,  be  seen  to  be  the  character  of 
the  troops  on  both  sides.  On  both  sides  their  individual 
quality  was  high;  on  both,  circumstances  and  the  dis- 
position of  the  people  combined  to  make  discipline  weak. 
This  character,  common  to  the  two  armies,  was  conspicu- 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  221 

ous  in  many  battles  of  the  war,  but  a  larger  interest 
attaches  to  the  policy  of  the  two  administrations  in  rais- 
ing and  organising  their  civilian  armies.  The  Southern 
Government,  if  its  proceedings  were  studied  in  detail, 
would  probably  seem  to  have  been  better  advised  at  the 
start  on  matters  of  military  organisation;  for  instance,  it 
had  early  and  long  retained  a  superiority  in  cavalry  which 
was  not  a  mere  result  of  good  fortune.  But  here,  too, 
there  was  an  inherent  advantage  in  the  very  fact  that  the 
South  had  started  upon  a  desperate  venture.  There  can 
hardly  be  a  more  difficult  problem  of  detail  for  states- 
men than  the  co-ordination  of  military  and  civil  require- 
ments in  the  raising  of  an  army.  But  in  the  South  all 
civil  considerations  merged  themselves  in  the  paramount 
necessity  of  a  military  success  for  which  all  knew  the  ut- 
most effort  was  needed.  The  several  States  of  the  South, 
claiming  as  they  did  a  far  larger  independence  than  the 
Northern  States,  knew  that  they  could  only  make  that 
claim  good  by  being  efficient  members  of  the  Confed- 
eracy. Thus  it  was  comparatively  easy  for  the  Con- 
federate Government  to  adopt  and  maintain  a  consecu- 
tive policy  in  this  matter,  and  though,  from  the  condi- 
tions of  a  widely  spread  agricultural  population,  volun- 
tary enlistment  produced  poor  results  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  it  appears  to  have  been  easy  to  introduce 
quite  early  an  entirely  compulsory  system  of  a  stringent 
kind. 

The  introduction  of  compulsory  service  in  the  North 
has  its  place  in  our  subsequent  story.  The  system  that 
preceded  it  need  not  be  dwelt  upon  here,  because,  full  of 
instruction  as  a  technical  study  of  it  (such  as  has  been 
made  by  Colonel  Henderson)  must  be,  no  brief  survey 
by  an  amateur  could  be  useful.  It  is  necessary,  however, 
to  understand  the  position  in  which  Lincoln's  Adminis- 
tration was  placed,  without  much  experience  in  America, 
or  perhaps  elsewhere  in  the  world,  to  guide  it.  It  must 
not  be  contended,  for  it  cannot  be  known  that  the  prob- 
lem was  fully  and  duly  envisaged  by  Lincoln  on  his  Cabi- 
net, but  it  would  probably  in  any  case  have  been  impos- 


222  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sible  for  them  to  pursue  from  the  first  a  consecutive  and 
well-thought-out  policy  for  raising  an  army  and  keeping 
up  its  strength.  The  position  of  the  North  differed  funda- 
mentally from  that  of  the  South;  the  North  experienced 
neither  the  ardour  nor  the  throes  of  a  revolution;  it  was 
never  in  any  fear  of  being  conquered,  only  of  not  con- 
quering. There  was  nothing,  therefore,  which  at  once 
bestowed  on  the  Government  a  moral  power  over  the 
country  vastly  in  excess  of  that  which  it  exercised  in 
normal  times.  This,  however,  was  really  necessary  to 
it  if  the  problem  of  the  Army  was  to  be  handled  in  the 
way  which  was  desirable  from  a  military  point  of  view. 
Compulsory  service  could  not  at  first  be  thought  of.  It 
was  never  supposed  that  the  tiny  regular  Army  of  the 
United  States  Government  could  be  raised  to  any  very 
great  size  by  voluntary  enlistment,  and  the  limited  in- 
crease of  it  which  was  attempted  was  not  altogether  suc- 
cessful. The  existing  militia  system  of  the  several  States 
was  almost  immediately  found  faulty  and  was  discarded. 
A  great  Volunteer  Force  had  to  be  raised  which  should 
be  under  the  command  of  the  President,  who  by  the 
Constitution  is  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  forces  of  the 
Union,  but  which  must  be  raised  in  each  State  by  the 
State  Governor  (or,  if  he  was  utterly  wanting,  by  lead- 
ing local  citizens).  Now  State  Governors  are  not — it 
must  be  recalled — officers  under  the  President,  but  inde- 
pendent potentates  acting  usually  in  as  much  detachment 
from  him  as  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge from  the  Board  of  Education  or  a  Presbyterian 
minister  from  a  bishop.  This  group  of  men,  for  the 
most  part  able,  patriotic,  and  determined,  were  there  to 
be  used  and  had  to  be  consulted.  It  follows  that  the 
policy  of  the  North  in  raising  and  organising  its  armies 
had  at  first  to  be  a  policy  evolved  between  numerous 
independent  authorities  which  never  met  and  were  held 
together  by  a  somewhat  ignorant  public  opinion,  some- 
times much  depressed  and  sometimes,  which  was  worse, 
oversanguine.  It  is  impossible  to  judge  exactly  how  ill 
or  how  well  Lincoln,  under  such  circumstances,  grappled 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  323 

with  this  particular  problem,  but  many  anomalies  which 
seem  to  us  preposterous — the  raising  of  raw  new  regi- 
ments when  fine  seasoned  regiments  were  short  of  half 
their  strength,  and  so  forth — were  in  these  circumstances 
inevitable.  The  national  system  of  recruiting,  backed 
by  compulsion,  which  was  later  set  up,  still  required  for 
its  success  the  co-operation  of  State  and  local  authorities 
of  this  wholly  independent  character. 

Northern  and  Southern  armies  alike  had  necessarily 
to  be  commanded  to  a  great  extent  by  amateur  officers; 
the  number  of  officers,  in  the  service  or  retired,  who  had 
been  trained  at  West  Point,  was  immeasurably  too  small 
for  the  needs  of  the  armies.  Amateurs  had  to  be  called 
in,  and  not  only  so,  but  they  had  in  some  cases  to  be 
given  very  important  commands.  The  not  altogether 
unwholesome  tradition  that  a  self-reliant  man  can  turn 
his  hand  to  anything  was  of  course  very  strong  in  Amer- 
ica, and  the  short  military  annals  of  the  country  had  been 
thought  to  have  added  some  illustrious  instances  to  the 
roll  of  men  of  peace  who  have  distinguished  themselves 
in  arms.  So  a  political  leader,  no  matter  whether  he  was 
Democrat  or  Republican,  who  was  a  man  of  known  gen- 
eral capacity,  would  sometimes  at  first  seem  suitable  for 
an  important  command  rather  than  the  trained  but  un- 
known professional  soldier  who  was  the  alternative. 
Moreover,  it  seemed  foolish  not  to  appoint  him,  when,  as 
sometimes  happened,  he  could  bring  thousands  of  recruits 
from  his  State.  The  Civil  War  turned  out,  however,  to 
show  the  superiority  of  the  duly  trained  military  mind 
in  a  marked  degree.  Some  West-Pointers  of  repute  of 
course  proved  incapable,  and  a  great  many  amateur 
colonels  and  generals,  both  North  and  South,  attained 
a  very  fair  level  of  competence  in  the  service  (the  few 
conspicuous  failures  seem  to  have  been  quite  exceptional) ; 
but,  all  the  same,  of  the  many  clever  and  stirring  men 
who  then  took  up  soldiering  as  novices  and  served  for 
four  years,  not  one  achieved  brilliant  success;  of  the 
generals  in  the  war  whose  names  are  remembered,  some 
had  indeed  passed  years  in  civil  life,  but  every  one  had 


224  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

received  a  thorough  military  training  in  the  years  of  his 
early  manhood.  It  certainly  does  not  appear  that  the 
Administration  was  really  neglectful  of  professional 
merit;  it  hungered  to  find  it;  but  many  appointments  must 
at  first  have  been  made  in  a  haphazard  fashion,  for  there 
was  no  machinery  for  sifting  claims.  A  zealous  but  un- 
known West-Pointer  put  under  an  outsider  would  be  apt 
to  write  as  Sherman  did  in  early  days :  "  Mr.  Lincoln 
meant  to  insult  me  and  the  Army  " ;  and  a  considerable 
jealousy  evidently  arose  between  West-Pointers  and  ama- 
teurs. It  was  aggravated  by  the  rivalry  between  officers 
of  the  Eastern  army  and  those  of  the,  more  largely 
amateur,  Western  army.  The  amateurs,  too,  had  some- 
thing to  say  on  their  side ;  they  were  apt  to  accuse  West- 
Pointers  as  a  class  of  a  cringing  belief  that  the  South 
was  invincible.  There  was  nothing  unnatural  or  very 
serious  in  all  this,  but  political  influences  which  arose  later 
caused  complaints  of  this  nature  to  be  made  the  most  of, 
and  a  general  charge  to  be  made  against  Lincoln's  Ad- 
ministration of  appointing  generals  and  removing  them 
under  improper  political  influences.  This  general  charge, 
however,  rests  upon  a  limited  number  of  alleged  instances, 
and  all  of  these  which  are  of  any  importance  will  neces- 
sarily be  examined  in  later  chapters. 

It  may  be  useful  to  a  reader  who  wishes  to  follow  the 
main  course  of  the  war  carefully,  if  the  chief  ways  in 
which  geographical  facts  affected  it  are  here  summarised 
— necessarily  somewhat  dryly.  Minor  operations  at  out- 
lying points  on  the  coast  or  in  the  Far  West  will  be  left 
out  of  account,  so  also  will  a  serious  political  considera- 
tion, which  we  shall  later  see  caused  doubt  for  a  time  as 
to  the  proper  strategy  of  the  North. 

It  must  be  noted  first,  startling  as  it  may  be  to  English- 
men who  remember  the  war  partly  by  the  exploits  of  the 
Alabama,  that  the  naval  superiority  of  the  North  was 
overwhelming.  In  spite  of  many  gallant  efforts  by  the 
Southern  sailors,  the  North  could  blockade  their  coasts 
and  could  capture  most  of  the  Southern  ports  long  before 
its  superiority  on  land  was  established.  Turning  then 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  225 

to  land,  we  may  treat  the  political  frontier  between  the 
two  powers,  after  a  short  preliminary  stage  of  war,  as 
being  marked  by  the  southern  boundaries  of  Maryland, 
West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  just  as  they  are 
seen  on  the  map  to-day.  In  doing  so,  we  must  note  that 
at  the  commencement  of  large  operations  parts  of  Ken- 
tucky and  Missouri  were  occupied  by  Southern  invading 
forces.  This  frontier  is  cut,  not  far  from  the  Atlantic, 
by  the  parallel  mountain  chains  which  make  up  the  Alle- 
ghanies  or  Appalachians.  These  in  effect  separated  the 
field  of  operations  into  a  narrow  Eastern  theatre  of  war, 
and  an  almost  boundless  Western  theatre;  and  the  opera- 
tions in  these  two  theatres  were  almost  to  the  end  inde- 
pendent of  each  other. 

In  the  Eastern  theatre  of  war  lies  Washington,  the 
capital  of  the  Union,  a  place  of  great  importance  to  the 
North  for  obvious  reasons,  and  especially  because  if  it 
fell  European  powers  would  be  likely  to  recognise  the 
Confederacy.     It  lies,  on  the  Potomac,  right  upon  the 
frontier;  and  could  be  menaced  also  in  the  rear,  for  the 
broad  and  fertile  trough  between  the  mountain  chains 
formed  by  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah  River,  which 
flows  northward  to  join  the  Potomac  at  a  point  north- 
west  of  Washington,   was   in   Confederate   hands   and 
formed  a  sort  of  sally-port  by  which  a  force  from  Rich- 
mond could  get  almost  behind  Washington.    A  hundred 
miles  south  of  Washington  lay  Richmond,  which  shortly 
became  the  capital  of  the  Confederates,  instead  of  Mont- 
gomery in  Alabama.    As  a  brand-new  capital  it  mattered 
little  to  the  Confederates,  though  at  the  very  end  of  the 
war  it  became  their  last  remaining  stronghold.    The  in- 
tervening country,   which  was  in  Southern  hands,  was 
extraordinarily  difficult.     The  reader  may  notice  on  the 
map  the  rivers  with  broad  estuaries  which  are  its  mo 
marked  features,  and  with  the  names  of  which  we  shall 
become  familiar.     The  rivers  themselves  were  obstacles 
to  an  invading  Northern  army;  their  estuaries,  on  t 
other  hand,  soon  afforded  it  safe  communication  by  sea. 
In  the  Western  theatre  of  war  we  must  remember  nrst 


226  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  enormous  length  of  frontier  in  proportion  to  the  pop- 
ulation on  either  side.  This  necessarily  made  the  prog- 
ress of  Northern  invasion  slow,  and  its  proper  direction 
hard  to  determine,  for  diversions  could  be  created  by  a 
counter-invasion  elsewhere  along  the  frontier  or  a  stroke 
at  the  invaders'  communications.  The  principal  feature 
of  the  whole  region  is  the  great  waterways,  on  which  the 
same  advantages  which  gave  the  sea  to  the  North  gave 
it  also  an  immense  superiority  in  the  river  warfare  of 
flotillas  of  gunboats.  When  the  North  with  its  gunboats 
could  get  control  of  the  Mississippi  the  South  would  be 
deprived  of  a  considerable  part  of  its  territory  and 
resources,  and  cut  off  from  its  last  means  of  trading  with 
Europe  (save  for  the  relief  afforded  by  blockade-run- 
ners) by  being  cut  off  from  Mexico  and  its  ports. 
Further,  when  the  North  could  control  the  tributaries  of 
the  Mississippi,  especially  the  Cumberland  and  the  Ten- 
nessee which  flow  into  the  great  river  through  the  Ohio, 
it  would  cut  deep  into  the  internal  communications  of  the 
South.  Against  this  menace  the  South  could  only  con- 
tend by  erecting  powerful  fortresses  on  the  rivers,  and 
the  capture  of  some  of  them  was  the  great  object  of  the 
earlier  Northern  operations. 

The  railway  system  of  the  South  must  also  be  taken 
into  account  in  connection  with  their  waterways.  This, 
of  course,  cannot  be  seen  on  a  modern  map.  Perhaps 
the  following  may  make  the  main  points  clear.  The 
Southern  railway  system  touched  the  Mississippi  and  the 
world  beyond  it  at  three  points  only:  Memphis,  Vicks- 
burg,  and  New  Orleans.  A  traveller  wishing  to  go,  say, 
from  Richmond  by  rail  towards  the  West  could  have,  if 
distance  were  indifferent  to  him,  a  choice  of  three  routes 
for  part  of  the  way.  He  could  go  through  Knoxville  in 
Tennessee  to  Chattanooga  in  that  State,  where  he  had  a 
choice  of  routes  further  West,  or  he  could  take  one  of 
two  alternative  lines  south  into  Georgia  and  thence  go 
either  to  Atlanta  or  to  Columbus  in  the  west  of  that 
State.  Arrived  at  Atlanta  or  Columbus,  he  could  pro- 
ceed further  West  either  by  making  a  detour  northwards 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  WAR  227 

through  Chattanooga  or  by  making  a  detour  southwards 
through  the  seaport  town  of  Mobile,  crossing  the  har- 
bour by  boat.  Thus  the  capture  of  Chattanooga  from 
the  South  would  go  far  towards  cutting  the  whole  South- 
ern railway  system  in  two,  and  the  capture  of  Mobile 
would  complete  it.  Lastly,  we  may  notice  two  lines  run- 
ning north  and  south  through  the  State  of  Mississippi, 
one  through  Corinth  and  Meridian,  and  the  other  nearer 
the  great  river.  From  this  and  the  course  of  the  rivers 
the  strategic  importance  of  some  of  the  towns  mentioned 
may  be  partly  appreciated. 

The  subjugation  of  the  South  in  fact  began  by  a 
process,  necessarily  slow  and  much  interrupted,  whereby 
having  been  blockaded  by  sea  it  was  surrounded  by  land, 
cut  off  from  its  Western  territory,  and  deprived  of  its 
main  internal  lines  of  communication.  Richmond,  against 
which  the  North  began  to  move  within  the  first  three 
months  of  the  war,  did  not  fall  till  nearly  four  years  later, 
when  the  process  just  described  had  been  completed,  and 
when  a  Northern  army  had  triumphantly  progressed, 
wasting  the  resources  of  the  country  as  it  went,  from 
Chattanooga  to  Atlanta,  thence  to  the  Atlantic  coast  of 
Georgia,  and  thence  northward  through  the  two  Caro- 
linas  till  it  was  about  to  join  hands  with  the  army  assail- 
ing Richmond.  Throughout  this  time  the  attention  of  a 
large  part  of  the  Northern  public  and  of  all  those  who 
watched  the  war  from  Europe  was  naturally  fastened  to 
a  great  extent  upon  the  desperate  fighting  which  occurred 
in  the  region  of  Washington  and  of  Richmond  and  upon 
the  ill  success  of  the  North  in  endeavours  of  unforeseen 
difficulty  against  the  latter  city.  We  shall  see,  however, 
that  the  long  and  humiliating  failure  of  the  North  in 
this  quarter  was  neither  so  unaccountable  nor  nearly  so 
important  as  it  appeared. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  AND  LINCOLN^ 
ADMINISTRATION 

I.  Preliminary  Stages. 

ON  the  morning  after  the  bombardment  of  Fort 
Sumter  there  appeared  a  Proclamation  by  the  President 
calling  upon  the  Militia  of  the  several  States  to  furnish 
75,000  men  for  the  service  of  the  United  States  in  the 
suppression  of  an  "  unlawful  combination."  Their  serv- 
ice, however,  would  expire  by  law  thirty  days  after  the 
next  meeting  of  Congress,  and,  in  compliance  with  a  fur- 
ther requirement  of  law  upon  this  subject,  the  President 
also  summoned  Congress  to  meet  in  extraordinary 
session  upon  July  4.  The  Army  already  in  the  service  of 
the  United  States  consisted  of  but  16,000  officers  and 
men,  and,  though  the  men  of  this  force,  being  less  affected 
by  State  ties  than  their  officers,  remained,  as  did  the  men 
of  the  Navy,  true  almost  without  exception  to  their  alle- 
giance, all  but  3,000  of  them  were  unavailable  and  scat- 
tered in  small  frontier  forts  in  the  West.  A  few  days 
later,  when  it  became  plain  that  the  struggle  might  long 
outlast  the  three  months  of  the  Militia,  the  President 
called  for  Volunteers  to  enlist  for  three  years'  service, 
and  perhaps  (for  the  statements  are  conflicting)  some 
300,000  troops  of  one  kind  and  another  had  been  raised 
by  June. 

The  affair  of  Fort  Sumter  and  the  President's  Procla- 
mation at  once  aroused  and  concentrated  the  whole  public 
opinion  of  the  free  States  in  the  North  and,  in  an  oppo- 
site sense,  of  the  States  which  had  already  seceded.  The 
border  slave  States  had  now  to  declare  for  the  one  side 
or  for  the  other.  Virginia  as  a  whole  joined  the  Southern 
Confederacy  forthwith,  but  several  Counties  in  the  moun- 

228 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  229' 

tainous  region  of  the  west  of  that  State  were  strongly  for 
the  Union.  These  eventually  succeeded  with  the  support 
of  Northern  troops  in  separating  from  Virginia  and 
forming  the  new  State  of  West  Virginia.  Tennessee  also 
joined  the  South,  though  in  Eastern  Tennessee  the  bulk 
of  the  people  held  out  for  the  Union  without  such  good 
fortune  as  their  neighbours  in  West  Virginia.  Arkansas 
beyond  the  Mississippi  followed  the  same  example, 
though  there  were  some  doubt  and  division  in  all  parts 
of  that  State.  In  Delaware,  where  the  slaves  were  very 
few,  the  Governor  did  not  formally  comply  with  the 
President's  Proclamation,  but  the  people  as  a  whole  re- 
sponded to  it.  The  attitude  of  Maryland,  which  almost 
surrounds  Washington,  kept  the  Government  at  the  cap- 
ital in  suspense  and  alarm  for  a  while,  for  both  the  city 
of  Baltimore  and  the  existing  State  legislature  were  in- 
clined to  the  South.  In  Kentucky  and  Missouri  the  State 
authorities  were  also  for  the  South,  and  it  was  only  after 
a  struggle,  and  in  Missouri  much  actual  fighting,  that  the 
Unionist  majority  of  the  people  in  each  State  had  its  way. 
The  secession  of  Virginia  had  consequences  even  more 
important  than  the  loss  to  the  Union  of  a  powerful  State. 
General  Robert  E.  Lee,  a  Virginian,  then  in  Washington, 
was  esteemed  by  General  Scott  to  be  the  ablest  officer  in 
the  service.  Lincoln  and  his  Secretary  of  War  desired 
to  confer  on  him  the  command  of  the  Army.  Lee's 
decision  was  made  with  much  reluctance  and,  it  seems, 
hesitation.  He  was  not  only  opposed  to  the  policy  of 
secession,  but  denied  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede;  yet 
he  believed  that  his  absolute  allegiance  was  due  to  Vir- 
ginia. He  resigned  his  commission  in  the  United  States 
Army,  went  to  Richmond,  and,  in  accordance  with  what 
Wolseley  describes  as  the  prevailing  principle  that  had 
influenced  most  of  the  soldiers  he  met  in  the  South,  placed 
his  sword  at  the  disposal  of  his  own  State.  The  same 
loyalty  to  Virginia  governed  another  great  soldier, 
Thomas  J.  Jackson,  whose  historic  nickname,  "  Stone- 
wall," fails  to  convey  the  dashing  celerity  of  his  move- 
ments. While  they  both  lived  these  two  men  were  to  be 


230  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

linked  together  in  the  closest  comradeship  and  mutual 
trust.  They  sprang  from  different  social  conditions  and 
were  of  contrasting  types.  The  epithet  Cavalier  has  been 
fitly  enough  applied  to  Lee,  and  Jackson,  after  conver- 
sion from  the  wild  courses  of  his  youth,  was  an  austere 
Puritan.  To  quote  again  from  a  soldier's  memoirs, 
Wolseley  calls  Lee  "one  of  the  few  men  who  ever  seri- 
ously impressed  and  awed  me  with  their  natural,  their 
inherent,  greatness  " ;  he  speaks  of  his  "  majesty,"  and 
of  the  "  beauty,"  of  his  character,  and  of  the  "  sweetness 
of  his  smile  and  the  impressive  dignity  of  the  old-fash- 
ioned style  of  his  address";  "his  greatness,"  he  says, 
"  made  me  humble."  "  There  was  nothing,"  he  tells  us, 
"  of  these  refined  characteristics  in  Stonewall  Jackson," 
a  man  with  "  huge  hands  and  feet."  But  he  possessed 
"  an  assured  self-confidence,  the  outcome  of  his  sure  trust 
in  God.  How  simple,  how  humble-minded  a  man.  As 
his  impressive  eyes  met  yours  unflinchingly,  you  knew  that 
his  was  an  honest  heart."  To  this  he  adds  touches  less 
to  be  expected  concerning  a  Puritan  warrior,  whose 
Puritanism  was  in  fact  inclined  to  ferocity — how  Jack- 
son's "  remarkable  eyes  lit  up  for  the  moment  with  a 
look  of  real  enthusiasm  as  he  recalled  the  architectural 
beauty  of  the  seven  lancet  windows  in  York  Minster," 
how  "  intense  "  was  the  "  benignity  "  of  his  expression, 
and  how  in  him  it  seemed  that  "  great  strength  of  char- 
acter and  obstinate  determination  were  united  with  ex- 
treme gentleness  of  disposition  and  with  absolute  tender- 
ness towards  all  about  him."  Men  such  as  these  brought 
to  the  Southern  cause  something  besides  their  military, 
capacity;  but  as  to  the  greatness  of  that  capacity,  applied 
in  a  war  in  which  the  scope  was  so  great  for  individual 
leaders  of  genius,  there  is  no  question.  A  civilian  reader, 
looking  in  the  history  of  war  chiefly  for  the  evidences  of 
personal  quality,  can  at  least  discern  in  these  two  famous 
soldiers  the  moral  daring  which  in  doubtful  circumstances 
never  flinches  from  the  responsibility  of  a  well-considered 
risk,  and,  in  both  their  cases  as  in  those  of  some  other 
great  commanders,  can  recognise  in  this  rare  and  precious 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  231 

attribute  the  outcome  of  their  personal  piety.  We  shall 
henceforth  have  to  do  with  the  Southern  Confederacy  and 
its  armies,  not  in  their  inner  history  but  with  sole  regard  to 
the  task  which  they  imposed  upon  Lincoln  and  the  North. 
But  at  this  parting  of  the  ways  a  tribute  is  due  to  the  two 
men,  pre-eminent  among  many  devoted  people,  who,  in 
their  soldier-like  and  unreflecting  loyalty  to  their  cause, 
gave  to  it  a  lustre  in  which,  so  far  as  they  can  be  judged, 
neither  its  statesmen  nor  its  spiritual  guides  had  a  share. 

There  were  Virginian  officers  who  did  not  thus  go  with 
their  State.  Of  these  were  Scott  himself,  and  G.  H. 
Thomas;  and  Farragut,  the  great  sailor,  was  from  Ten- 
nessee. 

Throughout  the  free  States  of  the  North  there  took 
place  a  national  uprising  of  which  none  who  remember  it 
have  spoken  without  feeling  anew  its  spontaneous  ardour. 
Men  flung  off  with  delight  the.  hesitancy  of  the  preceding 
months,  and  recruiting  went  on  with  speed  and  enthu- 
siasm. Party  divisions  for  the  moment  disappeared.  Old 
Buchanan  made  public  his  adhesion  to  the  Government. 
Douglas  called  upon  Lincoln  to  ask  how  best  he  could 
serve  the  public  cause,  and,  at  his  request,  went  down  to 
Illinois  to  guide  opinion  and  advance  recruiting  there; 
so  employed,  the  President's  great  rival,  shortly  after, 
fell  ill  and  died,  leaving  the  leadership  of  the  Democrats 
to  be  filled  thereafter  by  more  scrupulous  but  less  patri- 
otic men.  There  was  exultant  confidence  in  the  power  of 
the  nation  to  put  down  rebellion,  and  those  who  realised 
the  peril  in  which  for  many  days  the  capital  and  the  ad- 
ministration were  placed  were  only  the  more  indignantly 
determined.  Perhaps  the  most  trustworthy  record  of 
popular  emotions  is  to  be  found  in  popular  humorists. 
Shortly  after  these  days  Artemus  Ward,  the  author  who 
almost  vied  with  Shakespeare  in  Lincoln's  affections, 
relates  how  the  confiscation  of  his  show  in  the  South  led 
him  to  have  an  interview  with  Jefferson  Davis.  "  Even 
now,"  said  Davis,  in  this  pleasant  fiction,  "  we  have  many 
frens  in  the  North."  "  J.  Davis,"  is  the  reply,  "  there's 
your  grate  mistaik.  Many  of  us  was  your  sincere  frends, 


232  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  thought  certin  parties  amung  us  was  fussin'  about 
you  and  meddlin'  with  your  consarns  intirely  too  much. 
But,  J.  Davis,  the  minit  you  fire  a  gun  at  the  piece  of  dry 
goods  called  the  Star-Spangled  Banner,  the  North  gits 
up  and  rises  en  massy,  in  defence  of  that  banner.  Not 
agin  you  as  individooals — not  agin  the  South  even — but 
to  save  the  flag.  We  should  indeed  be  weak  in  the  knees, 
unsound  in  the  heart,  milk-white  in  the  liver,  and  soft  in 
the  hed,  if  we  stood  quietly  by  and  saw  this  glorus 
Govyment  smashed  to  pieces,  either  by  a  furrin  or  a 
intestine  foe.  The  gentle-harted  mother  hates  to  take 
her  naughty  child  across  her  knee,  but  she  knows  it  is  her 
dooty  to  do  it.  So  we  shall  hate  to  whip  the  naughty 
South,  but  we  must  do  it  if  you  don't  make  back  tracks 
at  onct,  and  we  shall  wallup  you  out  of  your  boots !  "  In 
the  days  which  followed,  when  this  prompt  chastisement 
could  not  be  effected  and  it  seemed  indeed  as  if  the  South 
would  do  most  of  the  whipping,  the  discordant  elements 
which  mingled  in  this  unanimity  soon  showed  themselves. 
The  minority  that  opposed  the  war  was  for  a  time  silent 
and  insignificant,  but  among  the  supporters  of  the  war 
there  were  those  who  loved  the  Union  and  the  Constitu- 
tion and  who,  partly  for  this  very  reason,  had  hitherto 
cultivated  the  sympathies  of  the  South.  These — adher- 
ents mainly  of  the  Democratic  party — would  desire  that 
civil  war  should  be  waged  with  the  least  possible  breach 
of  the  Constitution,  and  be  concluded  with  the  least  pos- 
sible social  change;  many  of  them  would  wish  to  fight 
not  to  a  finish  but  to  a  compromise.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  were  those  who  loved  liberty  and  hated  alike  the 
slave  system  of  the  South  and  the  arrogance  which  it 
had  engendered.  These — the  people  distinguished  within 
the  Republican  party  as  Radicals — would  pay  little  heed 
to  constitutional  restraints  in  repelling  an  attack  on  the 
Constitution,  and  they  would  wish  from  the  first  to  make 
avowed  war  upon  that  which  caused  the  war — slavery. 
In  the  border  States  there  was  of  course  more  active  sym- 
pathy with  the  South,  and  in  conflict  with  this  the  Radi- 
calism of  some  of  these  States  became  more  stalwart  and 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  233 

intractable.  To  such  causes  of  dissension  was  added  as 
time  went  on  sheer  fatigue  of  the  war,  and  strangely 
enough  this  influence  was  as  powerful  with  a  few  Radi- 
cals as  it  was  with  the  ingrained  Democratic  partisans. 
They  despaired  of  the  result  when  success  at  last  was 
imminent,  and  became  sick  of  bloodshed  when  it  passed 
what  they  presumably  regarded  as  a  reasonable  amount. 
It  was  the  task  of  the  Administration  not  only  to  con- 
duct the  war,  but  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  North  in 
spite  of  differences  and  its  resolution  in  spite  of  disap- 
pointments. Lincoln  was  in  more  than  one  way  well  fitted 
for  this  task.  Old  experience  in  Illinois  and  Kentucky 
enabled  him  to  understand  very  different  points  of  view 
in  regard  to  the  cause  of  the  South.  The  new  question 
that  was  now  to  arise  about  slavery  was  but  a  particular 
form  of  the  larger  question  of  principle  to  which  he  had 
long  thought  out  an  answer  as  firm  and  as  definite  as  it 
was  moderate  and  in  a  sense  subtle.  He  had,  moreover, 
a  quality  of  heart  which,  as  it  seemed  to  those  near  him, 
the  protraction  of  the  conflict,  with  its  necessary  strain 
upon  him,  only  strengthened.  In  him  a  tenacity,  which 
scarcely  could  falter  in  the  cause  which  he  judged  to  be 
right,  was  not  merely  pure  from  bitterness  towards  his 
antagonists,  it  was  actually  bound  up  with  a  deep-seated 
kindliness  towards  them.  Whatever  rank  may  be  as- 
signed to  his  services  and  to  his  deserts,  it  is  first  and 
foremost  in  these  directions,  though  not  in  these  direc- 
tions alone,  that  the  reader  of  his  story  must  look  for 
them.  Upon  attentive  study  he  will  probably  appear  as 
the  embodiment,  in  a  degree  and  manner  which  are  alike 
rare,  of  the  more  constant  and  the  higher  judgment  of 
his  people.  It  is  plainer  still  that  he  embodied  the  reso- 
lute purpose  which  underlay  the  fluctuations  upon  the 
surface  of  their  political  life.  The  English  military  his- 
torians, Wood  and  Edmonds,  in  their  retrospect  over  the 
course  of  the  war,  well  sum  up  its  dramatic  aspect  when 
they  say:  "Against  the  great  military  genius  of  certain 
of  the  Southern  leaders  fate  opposed  the  unbroken  reso- 
lution and  passionate  devotion  to  the  Union,  which  he 


234  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

worshipped,  of  the  great  Northern  President.  As  long 
as  he  lived,  and  ruled  the  people  of  the  North,  there 
could  be  no  turning  back." 

There  are  plenty  of  indications  in  the  literature  of  the 
time  that  Lincoln's  determination  soon  began  to  be  widely 
felt  and  to  be  appreciated  by  common  people.  Literally, 
crowds  of  people  from  all  parts  of  the  North  saw  him, 
exchanged  a  sentence  or  two,  and  carried  home  their 
impressions;  and  those  who  were  near  him  record  the 
constant  fortitude  of  his  bearing,  noting  as  marked  ex- 
ceptions the  unrestrained  words  of  impatience  and  half- 
humorous  despondency  which  did  on  rare  occasions  escape 
him.  In  a  negative  way,  too,  even  the  political  world 
bore  its  testimony  to  this;  his  administration  was  charged 
with  almost  every  other  form  of  weakness,  but  there 
was  never  a  suspicion  that  he  would  give  in.  Nor  again, 
in  the  severest  criticisms  upon  him  by  knowledgeable  men 
that  have  been  unearthed  and  collected,  does  the  sugges- 
tion of  petty  personal  aims  or  of  anything  but  unselfish 
devotion  ever  find  a  place.  The  belief  that  he  could  be 
trusted  spread  itself  among  plain  people,  and,  given  this 
belief,  plain  people  liked  him  the  better  because  he  was 
plain.  But  if  at  the  distance  at  which  we  contemplate 
him,  and  at  which  from  the  moment  of  his  death  all 
America  contemplated  him,  certain  grand  traits  emerge, 
it  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  supposed  that  in  his  life  he 
stood  out  in  front  of  the  people  as  a  great  leader,  or 
indeed  as  a  leader  at  all,  in  the  manner,  say,  of  Chatham 
or  even  of  Palmerston.  Lincoln  came  to  Washington 
doubtless  with  some  deep  thoughts  which  other  men  had 
not  thought,  doubtless  also  with  some  important  knowl- 
edge, for  instance  of  the  border  States,  which  many 
statesmen  lacked,  but  he  came  there  a  man  inexperienced 
in  affairs.  It  was  a  part  of  his  strength  that  he  knew 
this  very  well,  that  he  meant  to  learn,  thought  he  could 
learn,  did  not  mean  to  be  hurried  where  he  had  not  the 
knowledge  to  decide,  entirely  appreciated  superior  knowl- 
edge in  others,  and  was  entirely  unawed  by  it.  But  Senators 
and  Representatives  in  Congress  and  Journalists  of  high 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  235 

standing,  as  a  rule,  perceived  the  inexperience  and  not 
the  strength.  The  deliberation  with  which  he  acted, 
patiently  watching  events,  saying  little,  listening  to  all 
sides,  conversing  with  a  naivete  which  was  genuine  but 
not  quite  artless,  seemingly  obdurate  to  the  pressure  of 
wise  counsels  on  one  side  and  on  the  other — all  this 
struck  many  anxious  observers  as  sheer  incompetence, 
and  when  there  was  just  and  natural  cause  for  their 
anxiety,  there  was  no  established  presumption  of  his 
wisdom  to  set  against  it.  And  this  effect  was  enhanced 
by  what  may  be  called  his  plainness,  his  awkwardness, 
and  actual  eccentricity  in  many  minor  matters.  To  many 
intelligent  people  who  met  him  they  were  a  grievous 
stumbling-block,  and  though  some  most  cultivated  men 
were  not  at  all  struck  by  them,  and  were  pleased  instead 
by  his  "  seeming  sincere,  and  honest,  and  steady,"  or  the 
like,  it  is  clear  that  no  one  in  Washington  was  greatly 
impressed  by  him  at  first  meeting.  His  oddities  were 
real  and  incorrigible.  Young  John  Hay,  whom  Nicolay, 
his  private  secretary,  introduced  as  his  assistant,  a  humor- 
ist like  Lincoln  himself,  but  with  leanings  to  literary  ele- 
gance and  a  keen  eye  for  social  distinctions,  loved  him 
all  along  and  came  to  worship  him,  but  irreverent  amuse- 
ment is  to  be  traced  in  his  recently  published  letters,  and 
the  glimpses  which  he  gives  us  of  "  the  Ancient  "  or  "  the 
Tycoon  "  when  quite  at  home  and  quite  at  his  ease  fully 
justify  him.  Lincoln  had  great  dignity  and  tact  for  use 
when  he  wanted  them,  but  he  did  not  always  see  the  use 
of  them.  Senator  Sherman  was  presented  to  the  new 
President.  "  So  you're  John  Sherman?  "  said  Lincoln. 
"  Let's  see  if  you're  as  tall  as  I  am.  We'll  measure." 
The  grave  politician,  who  was  made  to  stand  back  to 
back  with  him  before  the  company  till  this  interesting 
question  was  settled,  dimly  perceived  that  the  intention 
was  friendly,  but  felt  that  there  was  a  lack  of  ceremony. 
Lincoln's  height  was  one  of  his  subjects  of  harmless 
vanity;  many  tall  men  had  to  measure  themselves  against 
him  in  this  manner,  and  probably  felt  like  John  Sherman. 
On  all  sorts  of  occasions  and  to  all  sorts  of  people  he 


236  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

would  "  tell  a  little  story,"  which  was  often  enough,  in 
Lord  Lyons'  phrase,  an  "  extreme  "  story.  This  was 
the  way  in  which  he  had  grown  accustomed  to  be  friendly 
in  company;  it  served  a  purpose  when  intrusive  questions 
had  to  be  evaded,  or  reproofs  or  refusals  to  be  given 
without  offence.  As  his  laborious  and  sorrowful  task 
came  to  weigh  heavier  upon  him,  his  capacity  for  play  of 
this  sort  became  a  great  resource  to  him.  As  his  fame 
became  established  people  recognised  him  as  a  humorist; 
the  inevitable  "  little  story  "  became  to  many  an  endear- 
ing form  of  eccentricity;  but  we  may  be  sure  it  was  not 
so  always  or  to  everybody. 

"Those,"  says  Carl  Schurz,  a  political  exile  from 
Prussia,  who  did  good  service,  military  and  political,  to 
the  Northern  cause — "  those  who  visited  the  White 
House — and  the  White  House  appeared  to  be  open  to 
whomsoever  wished  to  enter — saw  there  a  man  of  un- 
conventional manners,  who,  without  the  slightest  effort 
to  put  on  dignity,  treated  all  men  alike,  much  like  old 
neighbours;  whose  speech  had  not  seldom  a  rustic  flavour 
about  it;  who  always  seemed  to  have  time  for  a  homely 
talk  and  never  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  press  business;  and 
who  occasionally  spoke  about  important  affairs  of  State 
with  the  same  nonchalance — I  might  almost  say  irrever- 
ence— with  which  he  might  have  discussed  an  every-day 
law  case  in  his  office  at  Springfield,  Illinois." 

Thus  Lincoln  was  very  far  from  inspiring  general  con- 
fidence in  anything  beyond  his  good  intentions.  He  is 
remembered  as  a  personality  with  a  "  something  "  about 
him — the  vague  phrase  is  John  Bright's — which  widely 
endeared  him,  but  his  was  by  no  means  that  "  magnetic  " 
personality  which  we  might  be  led  to  believe  was  indis- 
pensable in  America.  Indeed,  it  is  remarkable  that  to 
some  really  good  judges  he  remained  always  unimpres- 
sive. Charles  Francis  Adams,  who  during  the  Civil 
War  served  his  country  as  well  as  Minister  in  London 
as  his  grandfather  had  done  after  the  War  of  Independ- 
ence, lamented  to  the  end  that  Seward,  his  immediate 
chief,  had  to  serve  under  an  inferior  man;  and  a  more 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  237 

sympathetic  man,  Lord  Lyons,  our  representative  at 
Washington,  refers  to  Lincoln  with  nothing  more  than 
an  amused  kindliness.  No  detail  of  his  policy  has  escaped 
fierce  criticism,  and  the  man  himself  while  he  lived  was 
the  subject  of  so  much  depreciation  and  condescending 
approval,  that  we  are  forced  to  ask  who  discovered  his 
greatness  till  his  death  inclined  them  to  idealise  him. 
The  answer  is  that  precisely  those  Americans  of  trained 
intellect  whose  title  to  this  description  is  clearest  outside 
America  were  the  first  who  began  to  see  beneath  his 
strange  exterior.  Lowell,  watching  the  course  of  public 
events  with  ceaseless  scrutiny;  Walt  Whitman,  sauntering 
in  Washington  in  the  intervals  of  the  labour  among  the 
wounded  by  which  he  broke  down  his  robust  strength, 
and  seeing  things  as  they  passed  with  the  sure  observa- 
tion of  a  poet;  Motley,  the  historian  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
public, studying  affairs  in  the  thick  of  them  at  the  outset 
of  the  war,  and  not  less  closely  by  correspondence  when 
he  went  as  Minister  to  Vienna — such  men  when  they 
praised  Lincoln  after  his  death  expressed  a  judgment 
which  they  began  to  form  from  the  first;  a  judgment 
which  started  with  the  recognition  of  his  honesty,  traced 
the  evidence  of  his  wisdom  as  it  appeared,  gradually  and 
not  by  repentant  impulse  learned  his  greatness.  And  it 
is  a  judgment  large  enough  to  explain  the  lower  estimate 
of  Lincoln  which  certainly  had  wide  currency.  Not  to 
multiply  witnesses,  Motley  in  June,  1861,  having  seen 
him  for  the  second  time,  writes :  "  I  went  and  had  an 
hour's  talk  with  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  am  very  glad  of  it,  for, 
had  I  not  done  so,  I  should  have  left  Washington  with 
a  very  inaccurate  impression  of  the  President.  I  am 
now  satisfied  that  he  is  a  man  of  very  considerable  native 
sagacity;  and  that  he  has  an  ingenuous,  unsophisticated, 
frank,  and  noble  character.  I  believe  him  to  be  as 
true  as  steel,  and  as  courageous  as  true.  At  the  same 
time  there  is  doubtless  an  ignorance  about  State  matters, 
and  particularly  about  foreign  affairs,  which  he  does  not 
attempt  to  conceal,  but  which  we  must  of  necessity  regret 
in  a  man  placed  in  such  a  position  at  such  a  crisis.  Never- 


238  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

theless  his  very  modesty  in  this  respect  disarms  criticism. 
We  parted  very  affectionately,  and  perhaps  I  shall  never 
set  eyes  on  him  again,  but  I  feel  that,  so  far  as  perfect 
integrity  and  directness  of  purpose  go,  the  country  will 
be  safe  in  his  hands."  Three  years  had  passed,  and  the 
political  world  of  America  was  in  that  storm  of  general 
dissatisfaction  in  which  not  a  member  of  Congress  would 
be  known  as  "  a  Lincoln  man,"  when  Motley  writes  again 
from  Vienna  to  his  mother,  "  I  venerate  Abraham  Lin- 
coln exactly  because  he  is  the  true,  honest  type  of  Amer- 
ican democracy.  There  is  nothing  of  the  shabby-genteel, 
the  would-be-but-couldn't-be  fine  gentleman;  he  is  the 
great  American  Demos,  honest,  shrewd,  homely,  wise, 
humorous,  cheerful,  brave,  blundering  occasionally,  but 
through  blunders  struggling  onwards  towards  what  he 
believes  the  right."  In  a  later  letter  he  observes,  "  His 
mental  abilities  were  large,  and  they  became  the  more 
robust  as  the  more  weight  was  imposed  upon  them." 

This  last  sentence,  especially  if  in  Lincoln's  mental 
abilities  the  qualities  of  his  character  be  included,  prob- 
ably indicates  the  chief  point  for  remark  in  any  estimate 
of  his  presidency.  It  is  true  that  he  was  judged  at  first 
as  a  stranger  among  strangers.  Walt  Whitman  has 
described  vividly  a  scene,  with  "  a  dash  of  comedy,  almost 
farce,  such  as  Shakespeare  puts  in  his  blackest  tragedies," 
outside  the  hotel  in  New  York  where  Lincoln  stayed  on 
his  journey  to  Washington;  "  his  look  and  gait,  his  per- 
fect composure  and  coolness,"  to  cut  it  short,  the  usually 
noted  marks  of  his  eccentricity,  "  as  he  stood  looking  with 
curiosity  on  that  immense  sea  of  faces,  and  the  sea  of 
faces  returned  the  look  with  similar  curiosity,  not  a  single 
one  "  among  the  crowd  "  his  personal  friend."  He  was 
not  much  otherwise  situated  when  he  came  to  Washing- 
ton. It  is  true  also  that  in  the  early  days  he  was  learning 
his  business.  "  Why,  Mr.  President,"  said  some  one 
towards  the  end  of  his  life,  "  you  have  changed  your 
mind."  "  Yes,  I  have,"  said  he,  "  and  I  don't  think  much 
of  a  man  who  isn't  wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday." 
But  it  seems  to  be  above  all  true  that  the  exercise  of 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  239 

power  and  the  endurance  of  responsibility  gave  him  new 
strength.  This,  of  course,  cannot  be  demonstrated,  but 
Americans  then  living,  who  recall  Abraham  Lincoln,  re- 
mark most  frequently  how  the  man  grew  to  his  task. 
And  this  perhaps  is  the  main  impression  which  the  slight 
record  here  presented  will  convey,  the  impression  of  a 
man  quite  unlike  the  many  statesmen  whom  power  and 
the  vexations  attendant  upon  it  have  in  some  piteous  way 
spoiled  and  marred,  a  man  who  started  by  being  tough 
and  shrewd  and  canny  and  became  very  strong  and  very 
wise,  started  with  an  inclination  to  honesty,  courage,  and 
kindness,  and  became,  under  a  tremendous  strain,  honest, 
brave,  and  kind  to  an  almost  tremendous  degree. 

The  North  then  started  upon  the  struggle  with  an 
eagerness  and  unanimity  from  which  the  revulsion  was 
to  try  all  hearts,  and  the  President's  most  of  all;  and 
not  a  man  in  the  North  guessed  what  the  strain  of  that 
struggle  was  to  be.  At  first  indeed  there  was  alarm  in 
Washington  for  the  immediate  safety  of  the  city.  Cory- 
federate  flags  could  be  seen  floating  from  the  hotels  in 
Alexandria  across  the  river;  Washington  itself  was  full 
of  rumours  of  plots  and  intended  assassinations,  and  full 
of  actual  Southern  spies;  everything  was  disorganised; 
and  Lincoln  himself,  walking  round  one  night,  found  the 
arsenal  with  open  doors,  absolutely  unguarded. 

By  April  20,  first  the  Navy  Yard  at  Gosport,  in  Vir- 
ginia, had  to  be  abandoned,  then  the  Arsenal  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  and  on  the  day  of  this  latter  event  Lee  went  over 
to  the  South.  One  regiment  from  Massachusetts,  where 
the  State  authorities  had  prepared  for  war  before  the 
fall  of  Sumter,  was  already  in  Washington;  but  it  had 
had  to  fight  its  way  through  a  furious  mob  in  Baltimore, 
with  some  loss  of  life  on  both  sides.  A  deputation  from 
many  churches  in  that  city  came  to  the  President,  beg- 
ging him  to  desist  from  his  bloodthirsty  preparations,  but 
found  him  "  constitutionally  genial  and  jovial,"  and 
"  wholly  inaccessible  to  Christian  appeals."  It  mattered 
more  that  a  majority  of  the  Maryland  Legislature  was 
for  the  South,  and  that  the  Governor  temporised  and 


240  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

requested  that  no  more  troops  should  pass  through  Balti- 
more. The  Mayor  of  Baltimore  and  the  railway  author- 
ities burned  railway  bridges  and  tore  up  railway  lines, 
and  the  telegraph  wires  were  cut.  Thus  for  about  five 
days  the  direct  route  to  Washington  from  the  North  was 
barred.  It  seemed  as  if  the  boast  of  some  Southern 
orator  that  the  Confederate  flag  would  float  over  the 
capital  by  May  i  might  be  fulfilled.  Beauregard  could 
have  transported  his  now  drilled  troops  by  rail  from 
South  Carolina  and  would  have  found  Washington  iso- 
lated and  hardly  garrisoned.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no 
such  daring  move  was  contemplated  in  the  South,  and 
the  citizens  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  were  themselves 
under  a  similar  alarm;  but  the  South  had  a  real  oppor- 
tunity. 

The  fall  of  Washington  at  that  moment  would  have 
had  political  consequences  which  no  one  realised  better 
than  Lincoln.  It  might  well  have  led  the  Unionists  in 
the  border  States  to  despair,  and  there  is  evidence  that 
even  then  he  so  fully  realised  the  task  which  lay  before 
the  North  as  to  feel  that  the  loss  of  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri  would  have  made  it  impossible.  He  was 
at  heart  intensely  anxious,  and  quaintly  and  injudiciously 
relieved  his  feelings  by  the  remark  to  the  "  6th  Massa- 
chusetts "  that  he  felt  as  if  all  other  help  were  a  dream, 
and  they  were  "  the  only  real  thing."  Yet  those  who 
were  with  him  testify  to  his  composure  and  to  the  vigour 
with  which  he  concerted  with  his  Cabinet  the  various 
measures  of  naval,  military,  financial,  postal,  and  police 
preparation  which  the  occasion  required,  but  which  need 
not  here  be  detailed.  Many  of  the  measures  of  course 
lay  outside  the  powers  which  Congress  had  conferred 
on  the  public  departments,  but  the  President  had  no  hesi- 
tation in  "  availing  himself,"  as  he  put  it,  "  of  the  broader 
powers  conferred  by  the  Constitution  in  cases  of  insur- 
rection," and  looking  for  the  sanction  of  Congress  after- 
wards, rather  than  "  let  the  Government  at  once  fall 
into  ruin."  The  difficulties  of  government  were  greatly 
aggravated  by  the  uncertainty  as  to  which  of  its  servants, 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  241 

civil,  naval,  or  military,  were  loyal,  and  the  need  of  rap- 
idly filling  the  many  posts  left  vacant  by  unexpected  deser- 
tion. Meanwhile  troops  from  New  England,  and  also 
from  New  York,  which  had  utterly  disappointed  some 
natural  expectations  in  the  South  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
its  rally  to  the  Union,  quickly  arrived  near  Baltimore. 
They  repaired  for  themselves  the  interrupted  railway 
tracks  round  the  city,  and  by  April  25  enough  soldiers 
were  in  Washington  to  put  an  end  to  any  present  alarm. 
In  case  of  need,  the  law  of  "  habeas  corpus  "  was  sus- 
pended in  Maryland.  The  President  had  no  wish  that 
unnecessary  recourse  should  be  had  to  martial  law.  Nat- 
urally, however,  one  of  his  generals  summarily  arrested 
a  Southern  recruiting  agent  in  Baltimore.  The  ordinary 
law  would  probably  have  sufficed,  and  Lincoln  is  believed 
to  have  regretted  this  action,  but  it  was  obvious  that  he 
must  support  it  when  done.  Hence  arose  an  occasion 
for  the  old  Chief  Justice  Taney  to  make  a  protest  on 
behalf  of  legality,  to  which  the  President,  who  had 
armed  force  on  his  side,  could  not  give  way,  and  thus 
early  began  a  controversy  to  which  we  must  recur.  It 
was  gravely  urged  upon  Lincoln  that  he  should  forcibly 
prevent  the  Legislature  of  Maryland  from  holding  a 
formal  sitting;  he  refused  on  the  sensible  ground  that 
the  legislators  could  assemble  in  some  way  and  had  better 
not  assemble  with  a  real  grievance  in  constitutional  law. 
Then  a  strange  alteration  came  over  Baltimore.  Within 
three  weeks  all  active  demonstration  in  favour  of  the 
South  had  subsided;  the  disaffected  Legislature  resolved 
upon  neutrality;  the  Governor,  loyal  at  heart — if  the 
brief  epithet  loyal  may  pass,  as  not  begging  any  profound 
legal  question — carried  on  affairs  in  the  interest  of  the 
Union;  postal  communication  and  the  passage  of  troops 
were  free  from  interruption  by  the  middle  of  May;  and 
the  pressing  alarm  about  Maryland  was  over.  These 
incidents  of  the  first  days  of  war  have  been  recounted  in 
some  detail,  because  they  may  illustrate  the  gravity  of 
the  issue  in  the  border  States,  in  others  of  which  the 
struggle,  though  further  removed  from  observation, 


242  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lasted  longer;  and  because,  too,  it  is  well  to  realise  the 
stress  of  agitation  under  which  the  Government  had  to 
make  far-reaching  preparation  for  a  larger  struggle, 
while  Lincoln,  whose  will  was  decisive  in  all  thes*e  meas- 
ures, carried  on  all  the  while  that  seemingly  unimportant 
routine  of  a  President's  life  which  is  in  the  quietest  times 
exacting. 

The  alarm  in  Washington  was  only  transitory,  and  it 
was  generally  supposed  in  the  North  that  insurrection 
would  be  easily  put  down.  Some  even  specified  the  num- 
ber of  days  necessary,  agreeably  fixing  upon  a  smaller 
number  than  the  ninety  days  for  which  the  militia  were 
called  out.  Secretary  Seward  has  been  credited  with 
language  of  this  kind,  and  even  General  Scott,  whose 
political  judgment  was  feeble,  though  his  military  judg- 
ment was  sound,  seems  at  first  to  have  rejected  proposals, 
for  example,  for  drilling  irregular  cavalry,  made  in  the 
expectation  of  a  war  of  some  length.  There  is  evidence 
that  neither  Lincoln  nor  Cameron,  the  Secretary  of  War, 
indulged  in  these  pleasant  fancies.  Irresistible  public 
opinion,  in  the  East  especially,  demanded  to  see  prompt 
activity.  The  North  had  arisen  in  its  might;  it  was  for 
the  Administration  to  put  forth  that  might,  capture  Rich- 
mond, to  which  the  Confederate  Government  had  moved, 
and  therewith  make  an  end  of  rebellion.  The  truth  was 
that  the  North  had  to  make  its  army  before  it  could 
wisely  advance  into  the  assured  territory  of  the  South; 
the  situation  of  the  Southern  Government  in  this  respect 
was  precisely  the  same.  The  North  had  enough  to  do 
meantime  in  making  sure  of  the  States  which  were  still 
debatable  ground.  Such  forces  as  were  available  must 
of  necessity  be  used  for  this  purpose,  but  for  any  larger 
operations  of  war  military  considerations,  especially  on 
the  side  which  had  the  larger  resources  at  its  back,  were 
in  favour  of  waiting  and  perfecting  the  instrument  which 
was  to  be  used.  But  in  the  course  of  July  the  pressure 
of  public  opinion  and  of  Congress,  which  had  then  assem- 
bled, overcame,  not  without  some  reason,  the  more 
cautious  military  view,  and  on  the  2ist  of  that  month  the 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  243 

North  received  its  first  great  lesson  in  adversity  at  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run. 

Before  recounting  this  disaster  we  may  proceed  with 
the  story  of  the  struggle  in  the  border  States.  At  an 
early  date  the  rising  armies  of  the  North  had  been  organ- 
ised into  three  commands,  called  the  Department  of  the 
Potomac,  on  the  front  between  Washington  and  Rich- 
mond, the  Department  of  the  Ohio,  on  the  upper  water- 
shed of  the  river  of  that  name,  and  the  Department  of 
the  West.  Of  necessity  the  generals  commanding  in  these 
two  more  Western  Departments  exercised  a  larger  dis- 
cretion than  the  general  at  Washington.  The  Depart- 
ment of  the  Ohio  was  under  General  McClellan,  before 
the  war  a  captain  of  Engineers,  who  had  retired  from 
active  service  and  had  been  engaged  as  a  railway  man- 
ager, in  which  capacity  he  has  already  been  noticed,  but 
who  had  earned  a  good  name  in  the  Mexican  War,  had 
been  keen  enough  in  his  profession  to  visit  the  Crimea, 
and  was  esteemed  by  General  Scott.  The  people  of 
West  Virginia,  who,  as  has  been  said,  were  trying  to 
organise  themselves  as  a  new  State,  adhering  to  the 
Union,  were  invaded  by  forces  despatched  by  the  Gov- 
ernor of  their  old  State.  They  lay  mainly  west  of  the 
mountains,  and  help  could  reach  them  up  tributary  val- 
leys of  the  Ohio.  They  appealed  to  McClellan,  and  the 
successes  quickly  won  by  forces  despatched  by  him,  and 
afterwards  under  his  direct  command,  secured  West  Vir- 
ginia, and  incidentally  the  reputation  of  McClellan.  In 
Kentucky,  further  west,  the  Governor  endeavoured  to 
hold  the  field  for  the  South  with  a  body  known  as  the 
State  Guard,  while  Unionist  leaders  among  the  people 
were  raising  volunteer  regiments  for  the  North.  Noth- 
ing, however,  was  determined  by  fighting  between  these 
forces.  The  State  Legislature  at  first  took  up  an  atti- 
tude of  neutrality,  but  a  new  Legislature,  elected  in  June, 
was  overwhelmingly  for  the  Union.  Ultimately  the  Con- 
federate armies  invaded  Kentucky,  and  the  Legislature 
thereupon  invited  the  Union  armies  into  the  State  to 
expel  them,  and  placed  40,000  Kentucky  volunteers  at 


244  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  disposal  of  the  President.  Thenceforward,  though 
Kentucky,  stretching  as  it  does  for  four  hundred  miles 
between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Alleghanies,  remained 
for  long  a  battle-ground,  the  allegiance  of  its  people  to 
the  Union  was  unshaken.  But  the  uncertainty  about  their 
attitude  continued  till  the  autumn  of  1861,  and  while  it 
lasted  was  an  important  element  in  Lincoln's  calcula- 
tions. (It  must  be  remembered  that  slavery  existed  in 
Kentucky,  Maryland,  and  Missouri.)  In  Missouri  the 
strife  of  factions  was  fierce.  Already  in  January  there 
had  been  reports  of  a  conspiracy  to  seize  the  arsenal  at 
St.  Louis  for  the  South  when  the  time  came,  and  General 
Scott  had  placed  in  command  Captain  Nathaniel  Lyon, 
on  whose  loyalty  he  relied  the  more  because  he  was  an 
opponent  of  slavery.  The  Governor  was  in  favour  of  the 
South — as  was  also  the  Legislature,  and  the  Governor 
could  count  on  some  part  of  the  State  Militia;  so  Lin- 
coln, when  he  called  for  volunteers,  commissioned  Lyon 
to  raise  them  in  Missouri.  In  this  task  a  Union  State 
Committee  in  St.  Louis  greatly  helped  him,  and  the 
large  German  population  in  that  city  was  especially  ready 
to  enlist  for  the  Union.  Many  of  the  German  immi- 
grants of  those  days  had  come  to  America  partly  for  the 
sake  of  its  free  institutions.  A  State  Convention  was 
summoned  by  the  Governor  to  pass  an  Ordinance  of 
Secession,  but  its  electors  were  minded  otherwise,  and  the 
Convention  voted  against  secession.  In  several  encoun- 
ters Lyon,  who  was  an  intrepid  soldier,  defeated  the 
forces  of  the  Governor;  in  June  he  took  possession  of 
the  State  capital,  driving  the  Governor  and  Legislature 
away;  the  State  Convention  then  again  assembled  and 
set  up  a  Unionist  Government  for  the  State.  This  new 
State  Government  was  not  everywhere  acknowledged; 
conspiracies  in  the  Southern  interest  continued  to  exist 
in  Missouri;  and  the  State  was  repeatedly  molested  by 
invasions,  of  no  great  military  consequence,  from 
Arkansas.  Indeed,  in  the  autumn  there  was  a  serious 
recrudescence  of  trouble,  in  which  Lyon  lost  his  life.  But 
substantially  Missouri  was  secured  for  the  Union.  Nat- 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  245 

urally  enough,  a  great  many  of  the  citizens  of  Missouri 
who  had  combined  to  save  their  State  to  the  Union 
became  among  the  strongest  of  the  "  Radicals  "  who  will 
later  engage  our  attention.  Many,  however,  of  the  lead- 
ing men  who  had  done  most  in  this  cause,  including  the 
friends  of  Blair,  Lincoln's  Postmaster-General,  adhered 
no  less  emphatically  to  the  "  Conservative  "  section  of 
the  Republicans. 

2.  Bull  Run. 

Thus,  in  the  autumn  of  1861,  North  and  South  had 
become  solidified  into  something  like  two  countries.  In 
the  month  of  July,  which  now  concerns  us,  this  process 
was  well  on  its  way,  but  it  is  to  be  marked  that  the  whole 
long  tract  of  Kentucky  still  formed  a  neutral  zone,  which 
the  Northern  Government  did  not  wish  to  harass,  and 
which  perhaps  the  South  would  have  done  well  to  let 
alone,  while  further  west  in  Missouri  the  forces  of  the 
North  were  not  even  as  fully  organised  as  in  the  East. 
So  the  only  possible  direction  in  which  any  great  blow 
could  be  struck  was  the  direction  of  Richmond,  now  the 
capital,  and  it  might  seem,  therefore,  the  heart,  of  the 
Confederacy.  The  Confederate  Congress  was  to  meet 
there  on  July  20.  The  New  York  Tribune,  which  was 
edited  by  Mr.  Horace  Greeley,  a  vigorous  writer  whose 
omniscience  was  unabated  by  the  variation  of  his  own 
opinion,  was  the  one  journal  of  far-reaching  influence 
in  the  North;  and  it  only  gave  exaggerated  point  to  a 
general  feeling  when  it  declared  that  the  Confederate 
Congress  must  not  meet.  The  Senators  and  Congress- 
men now  in  Washington  were  not  quite  so  exacting,  but 
they  had  come  there  unanimous  in  their  readiness  to 
vote  taxes  and  support  the  war  in  every  way,  and  they 
wanted  to  see  something  done;  and  they  wanted  it 
all  the  more  because  the  three  months'  service  of  the 
militia  was  running  out.  General  Scott,  still  the  chief 
military  adviser  of  Government,  was  quite  distinct  in  his 
preference  for  waiting  and  for  perfecting  the  discipline 
and  organisation  of  the  volunteers,  who  had  not  yet 


246  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

even  been  formed  into  brigades.  On  the  militia  he  set 
no  value  at  all.  For  long  he  refused  to  countenance 
any  but  minor  movements  preparatory  to  a  later  advance. 
It  is  not  quite  certain,  however,  that  Congress  and  public 
opinion  were  wrong  in  clamouring  for  action.  The 
Southern  troops  were  not  much,  if  at  all,  more  ready  for 
use  than  the  Northerners;  and  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
military  adviser,  Lee,  desired  time  for  their  defensive 
preparations.  It  was  perhaps  too  much  to  expect  that 
the  country  after  its  great  uprising  should  be  content  to 
give  supplies  and  men  without  end  while  nothing  appar- 
ently happened;  and  the  spirit  of  the  troops  them- 
selves might  suffer  more  from  inaction  than  from  defeat. 
A  further  thought,  while  it  made  defeat  seem  more  dan- 
gerous, made  battle  more  tempting.  There  was  fear 
that  European  Powers  might  recognise  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy and  enter  into  relations  with  it.  Whether  they 
did  so  depended  on  whether  they  were  confirmed  in  their 
growing  suspicion  that  the  North  could  not  conquer  the 
South.  Balancing  the  military  advice  which  was  given 
them  as  to  the  risk  against  this  political  importunity, 
Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet  chose  the  risk,  and  Scott  at 
length  withdrew  his  opposition.  Lincoln  was  possibly 
more  sensitive  to  pressure  than  he  afterwards  became, 
more  prone  to  treat  himself  as  a  person  under  the  orders 
of  the  people,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he 
acted  on  his  own  sober  judgment  as  well  as  that  of  his 
Cabinet.  Whatever  degree  of  confidence  he  reposed  in 
Scott,  Scott  was  not  very  insistent ;  the  risk  was  not  over- 
whelming; the  battle  was  very  nearly  won,  would  have 
been  won  if  the  orders  of  Scott  had  been  carried  out. 
No  very  great  harm  in  fact  followed  the  defeat  of  Bull 
Run;  and  the  danger  of  inaction  was  real.  He  was 
probably  then,  as  he  certainly  was  afterwards,  pro- 
foundly afraid  that  the  excessive  military  caution  which 
he  often  encountered  would  destroy  the  cause  of  the 
North  by  disheartening  the  people  who  supported  the 
war.  That  is  no  doubt  a  kind  of  fear  to  which  many 
statesmen  are  too  prone,  but  Lincoln's  sense  of  real  pop- 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  247 

ular  feeling  throughout  the  wide  extent  of  the  North  is 
agreed  to  have  been  uncommonly  sure.  Definite  judg- 
ment on  such  a  question  is  impossible,  but  probably 
Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet  were  wise. 

However,  they  did  not  win  their  battle.  The  Southern 
army  under  Beauregard  lay  near  the  Bull  Run  river, 
some  twenty  miles  from  Washington,  covering  the  rail- 
way junction  of  Manassas  on  the  line  to  Richmond.  The 
main  Northern  army,  under  General  McDowell,  a  capa- 
ble officer,  lay  south  of  the  Potoma^,  where  fortifications 
to  guard  Washington  had  already  been  erected  on  Vir- 
ginian soil.  In  the  Shenandoah  Valley  was  another 
Southern  force,  under  Joseph  Johnston,  watched  by  the 
Northern  general  Patterson  at  Harper's  Ferry,  which 
had  been  recovered  by  Scott's  operations.  Each  of  these 
Northern  generals  was  in  superior  force  to  his  opponent. 
McDowell  was  to  attack  the  Confederate  position  at 
Manassas,  while  Patterson,  whose  numbers  were  nearly 
double  Johnston's,  was  to  keep  him  so  seriously  occupied 
that  he  could  not  join  Beauregard.  With  whatever  ex- 
cuse of  misunderstanding  or  the  like,  Patterson  made 
hardly  an  attempt  to  carry  out  his  part  of  Scott's  orders, 
and  Johnston,  with  the  bulk  of  his  force,  succeeded  in 
joining  Beauregard  the  day  before  McDowell's  attack, 
and  without  his  gaining  knowledge  of  this  movement. 
The  battle  of  Bull  Run  or  Manassas  (or  rather  the 
earlier  and  more  famous  of  two  battles  so  named)  was 
an  engagement  of  untrained  troops  in  which  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  the  high  individual  quality  of  those  troops 
supplied  the  place  of  discipline.  McDowell  handled 
with  good  judgment  a  very  unhandy  instrument.  It  was 
only  since  his  advance  had  been  contemplated  that  his 
army  had  been  organised  in  brigades.  The  enemy,  occu- 
pying high  wooded  banks  on  the  south  side  of  the  Bull 
Run,  a  stream  about  as  broad  as  the  Thames  at  Oxford 
but  fordable,  was  successfully  pushed  back  to  a  high 
ridge  beyond;  but  the  stubborn  attacks  over  difficult 
ground  upon  this  further  position  failed  from  lack  of 
co-ordination,  and,  when  it  already  seemed  doubtful 


248  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

whether  the  tired  soldiers  of  the  North  could  renew 
them  with  any  hope,  they  were  themselves  attacked  on 
their  right  flank.  It  seems  that  from  that  moment  their 
success  upon  that  day  was  really  hopeless,  but  some  de- 
clare that  the  Northern  soldiers  with  one  accord  became 
possessed  of  a  belief  that  this  flank  attack  by  a  compara- 
tively small  body  was  that  of  the  whole  force  of  John- 
ston, freshly  arrived  upon  the  scene.  In  any  case  they 
spontaneously  retired  in  disorder;  they  were  not  effec- 
tively pursued,  but  McDowell  was  unable  to  rally  them 
at  Centreville,  a  mile  or  so  behind  the  Bull  Run.  Among 
the  camp  followers  the  panic  became  extreme,  and  they 
pressed  into  Washington  in  wild  alarm,  accompanied  by 
citizens  and  Congressmen  who  had  come  out  to  see  a 
victory,  and  who  left  one  or  two  of  their  number  behind 
as  prisoners  of  war.  The  result  was  a  surprise  to  the 
Southern  army.  Johnston,  who  now  took  over  the  com- 
mand, declared  that  it  was  as  much  disorganised  by  vic- 
tory as  the  Northern  army  by  defeat.  With  the  full 
approval  of  his  superiors  in  Richmond,  he  devoted  him- 
self to  entrenching  his  position  at  Manassas.  But  in 
Washington,  where  rumours  of  victory  had  been  arriv- 
ing all  through  the  day  of  battle,  there  prevailed  for 
some  time  an  impression  that  the  city  was  exposed  to 
immediate  capture,  and  this  impression  was  shared  by 
McClellan,  to  whom  universal  opinion  now  turned  as 
the  appointed  saviour,  and  who  was  forthwith  sum- 
moned to  Washington  to  take  command  of  the  army  of 
the  Potomac. 

Within  the  circle  of  the  Administration  there  was,  of 
course,  deep  mortification.  Old  General  Scott  passion- 
ately declared  himself  to  have  been  the  greatest  coward 
in  America  in  having  ever  given  way  to  the  President's 
desire  for  action.  Lincoln,  who  was  often  to  prove  his 
readiness  to  take  blame  on  his  own  shoulders,  evidently 
thought  that  the  responsibility  in  this  case  was  shared 
by  Scott,  and  demanded  to  know  whether  Scott  accused 
him  of  having  overborne  his  judgment.  The  old  gen- 
eral warmly,  if  a  little  ambiguously,  replied  that  he  had 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  249 

served  under  many  Presidents,  but  never  known  a  kinder 
master.  Plainly  he  felt  that  his  better  judgment  had 
somehow  been  overpowered,  and  yet  that  there  was 
nothing  in  their  relations  for  which  in  his  heart  he  could 
blame  the  President;  and  this  trivial  dialogue  is  worth 
remembering  during  the  dreary  and  controversial  tale 
of  Lincoln's  relations  with  Scott's  successor.  Lincoln, 
however  bitterly  disappointed,  showed  no  signs  of  dis- 
composure or  hesitancy.  The  business  of  making  the 
army  of  the  Potomac  quietly  began  over  again.  To  the 
four  days  after  Bull  Run  belongs  one  of  the  few  records 
of  the  visits  to  the  troops  which  Lincoln  constantly  paid 
when  they  were  not  too  far  from  Washington,  cheering 
them  with  little  talks  which  served  a  good  purpose  with- 
out being  notable.  He  was  reviewing  the  brigade  com- 
manded at  Bull  Run  by  William  Sherman,  later,  but  not 
yet,  one  of  the  great  figures  in  the  war.  He  was  open 
to  all  complaints,  and  a  colonel  of  militia  came  to  him 
with  a  grievance;  he  claimed  that  his  term  of  service 
had  already  expired,  that  he  had  intended  to  go  home, 
but  that  Sherman  unlawfully  threatened  to  shoot  him  if 
he  did  so.  Lincoln  had  a  good  look  at  Sherman,  and 
then  advised  the  colonel  to  keep  out  of  Sherman's  way, 
as  he  looked  like  a  man  of  his  word.  This  was  said 
in  the  hearing  of  many  men,  and  Sherman  records  his 
lively  gratitude  for  a  simple  jest  which  helped  him  greatly 
in  keeping  his  brigade  in  existence. 

Not  one  of  the  much  more  serious  defeats  suffered 
later  in  the  war  produced  by  itself  so  lively  a  sense  of 
discomfiture  in  the  North  as  this;  thus  none  will  equally 
claim  our  attention.  But,  except  for  the  first  false 
alarms  in  Washington,  there  was  no  disposition  to  mis- 
take its  military  significance.  The  "  second  uprising  of 
the  North,"  which  followed  upon  this  bracing  shock,  left 
as  vivid  a  memory  as  the  little  disaster  of  Bull  Run.  But 
there  was  of  necessity  a  long  pause  while  McClellan  re- 
modelled the  army  in  the  East,  and  the  situation  in  the 
West  was  becoming  ripe  for  important  movements.  The 
eagerness  of  the  Northern  people  to  make  some  progress^ 


250  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

again  asserted  itself  before  long,  but  to  their  surprise, 
and  perhaps  to  that  of  a  reader  to-day,  the  last  five 
months  of  1861  passed  without  notable  military  events. 
Here  then  we  may  turn  to  the  progress  of  other  affairs, 
departmental  affairs,  foreign  affairs,  and  domestic  policy, 
which,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  had  pressed  heavily  upon 
the  Administration  from  the  moment  that  war  began. 

3.  Lincoln's  Administration  Generally. 

Long  before  the  Eastern  public  was  very  keenly  aware 
of  Lincoln  the  members  of  his  Cabinet  had  come  to  think 
of  the  Administration  as  his  Administration,  some,  like 
Seward,  of  whom  it  could  have  been  little  expected,  with 
a  loyal,  and  for  America  most  fortunate,  acceptance  of 
real  subordination,  and  one  at  least,  Chase,  with  indig- 
nant surprise  that  his  own  really  great  abilities  were  not 
dominant.  One  Minister  early  told  his  friends  that 
there  was  but  one  vote  in  the  Cabinet,  the  President's, 
This  must  not  be  taken  in  the  sense  that  Lincoln's  per- 
sonal guidance  was  present  in  every  department.  He 
had  his  own  department,  concerned  with  the  maintenance 
of  Northern  unity  and  with  that  great  underlying  problem 
of  internal  policy  which  will  before  long  appear  again, 
and  the  business  of  the  War  Department  was  so  imme- 
diately vital  as  to  require  his  ceaseless  attention;  but  in 
other  matters  the  degree  and  manner  of  his  control  of 
course  varied.  Again,  it  is  far  from  being  the  case  that 
the  Cabinet  had  little  influence  on  his  action.  He  not 
only  consulted  it  much,  but  deferred  to  it  much.  His 
wisdom  seems  to  have  shown  itself  in  nothing  more 
strongly  than  in  recognising  when  he  wanted  advice  and 
when  he  did  not,  when  he  needed  support  and  when  he 
could  stand  alone.  Sometimes  he  yielded  to  his  Min- 
isters because  he  valued  their  judgment,  sometimes  also 
because  he  gauged  by  them  the  public  support  without 
which  his  action  must  fail.  Sometimes,  when  he  was 
sure  of  the  necessity,  he  took  grave  steps  without  advice 
from  them  or  any  one.  More  often  he  tried  to  arrive 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  251 

with  them  at  a  real  community  of  decision.  It  is  often 
impossible  to  guess  what  acts  of  an  Administration  are 
rightly  credited  to  its  chief.  The  hidden  merit  or  demerit 
of  many  statesmen  has  constantly  lain  in  the  power,  or 
the  lack  of  it,  of  guiding  their  colleagues  and  being  guided 
in  turn.  If  we  tried  to  be  exact  in  saying  Lincoln,  or 
Lincoln's  Cabinet,  or  the  North  did  this  or  that,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  thresh  out  many  bushels  of  tittle-tattle. 
The  broad  impression,  however,  remains  that  in  the 
many  things  in  which  Lincoln  did  not  directly  rule  he 
ruled  through  a  group  of  capable  men  of  whom  he  made 
the  best  use,  and  whom  no  other  chief  could  have  in- 
duced to  serve  so  long  in  concord.  As  we  proceed  some 
authentic  examples  of  his  precise  relations  with  them 
will  appear,  in  which,  unimportant  as  they  seem,  one 
test  of  his  quality  as  a  statesman  and  of  his  character 
should  be  sought. 

The  naval  operations  of  the  war  afford  many  tales  of 
daring  on  both  sides  which  cannot  here  be  noticed.  They 
afford  incidents  of  strange  interest  now,  such  as  the 
exploit  of  the  first  submarine.  (It  belonged  to  the  South; 
its  submersion  invariably  resulted  in  the  death  of  the 
whole  crew;  and,  with  full  knowledge  of  this,  a  devoted 
crew  went  down  and  destroyed  a  valuable  Northern  iron- 
clad.) The  ravages  on  commerce  of  the  Alabama  and 
some  other  Southern  cruisers  became  only  too  famous 
in  England,  from  whose  ship-building  yards  they  had  es- 
caped. The  North  failed  too  in  some  out  of  the  fairly 
numerous  combined  naval  and  military  expeditions,  which 
were  undertaken  with  a  view  to  making  the  blockade 
more  complete  and  less  arduous  by  the  occupation  of 
Southern  ports,  and  perhaps  to  more  serious  incursions 
into  the  South.  Among  those  of  them  which  will  re- 
quire no  special  notice,  most  succeeded.  Thus  by  the 
spring  of  1863  Florida  was  substantially  in  Northern 
hands,  and  by  1865  the  South  had  but  two  ports  left, 
Charleston  and  Wilmington;  but  the  venture  most  attrac- 
tive to  Northern  sentiment,  an  attack  upon  Charleston 
itself,  proved  a  mere  waste  of  military  force.  More- 


252  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

over,  till  a  strong  military  adviser  was  at  last  found  in 
Grant  there  was  some  dissipation  of  military  force  in 
such  expeditions.  Nevertheless,  the  naval  success  of  the 
North  was  so  continuous  and  overwhelming  that  its  his- 
tory in  detail  need  not  be  recounted  in  these  pages.  Al- 
most from  the  first  the  ever-tightening  grip  of  the  block* 
ade  upon  the  Southern  coasts  made  its  power  felt,  and 
early  in  1862  the  inland  waterways  of  the  South  were 
beginning  to  fall  under  the  command  of  the  Northern 
flotillas.  Such  a  success  needed,  of  course,  the  adoption 
of  a  decided  policy  from  the  outset;  it  needed  great  ad- 
ministrative ability  to  improvise  a  navy  where  hardly 
any  existed,  and  where  the  conditions  of  its  employment 
were  in  many  respects  novel;  and  it  needed  resourceful 
watching  to  meet  the  surprises  of  fresh  naval  invention 
by  which  the  South,  poor  as  were  its  possibilities  for  ship- 
building, might  have  rendered  impotent,  as  once  or  twice 
it  seemed  likely  to  do,  the  Northern  blockade.  Gideon 
Welles,  the  responsible  Cabinet  Minister,  was  constant 
and  would  appear  to  have  been  capable  at  his  task,  but 
the  inspiring  mind  of  the  Naval  Department  was  found 
in  Gustavus  V.  Fox,  a  retired  naval  officer,  who  at  the 
beginning  of  Lincoln's  administration  was  appointed 
Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  The  policy  of  block, 
ade  was  begun  by  Lincoln's  Proclamation  on  April  19, 
1 86 1.  It  was  a  hardy  measure,  certain  to  be  a  cause  of 
friction  with  foreign  Powers.  The  United  States  Gov- 
ernment had  contended  in  1812  that  a  blockade  which  is 
to  confer  any  rights  against  neutral  commerce  must  be 
an  effective  blockade,  and  has  not  lately  been  inclined 
to  take  lax  views  upon  such  questions;  but  when  it  de- 
clared its  blockade  of  the  South  it  possessed  only  three 
steamships  of  war  with  which  to  make  it  effective.  But 
the  policy  was  stoutly  maintained.  The  Naval  Depart- 
ment at  the  very  first  set  about  buying  merchant  ships  in 
Northern  ports  and  adapting  them  to  warlike  use,  and 
building  ships  of  its  own,  in  the  design  of  which  it  shortly 
obtained  the  help  of  a  Commission  of  Congress  on  the 
subject  of  ironclads.  The  Naval  Department  had  at 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  253 

least  the  fullest  support  and  encouragement  from  Lincoln 
in  the  whole  of  its  policy.  Everything  goes  to  show  that 
he  followed  naval  affairs  carefully,  but  that,  as  he  found 
them  conducted  on  sound  lines  by  men  that  he  trusted, 
his  intervention  in  them  was  of  a  modest  kind.  Welles 
continued  throughout  the  member  of  his  Cabinet  with 
whom  he  had  the  least  friction,  and  was  probably  one 
of  those  Ministers,  common  in  England,  who  earn  the 
confidence  of  their  own  departments  without  in  any  way 
impressing  the  imagination  of  the  public;  and  a  letter  by 
Lincoln  to  Fox  immediately  after  the  affair  of  Fort 
Sumter  shows  the  hearty  esteem  and  confidence  with 
which  from  the  first  he  regarded  Fox.  Of  the  few  slight 
records  of  his  judgment  in  these  matters  one  is  signifi- 
cant. The  unfortunate  expedition  against  Charleston  in 
the  spring  of  1863  was  undertaken  with  high  hopes  by 
the  Naval  Department;  but  Lincoln,  we  happen  to  know, 
never  believed  it  could  succeed.  He  has,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  been  blamed  for  dealings  with  his  military 
officers  in  which  he  may  be  said  to  have  spurred  them 
hard;  he  cannot  reasonably  be  blamed  for  giving  the 
rein  to  his  expert  subordinates,  because  his  own  judg- 
ment, which  differed  from  theirs,  turned  out  right.  This 
is  one  of  very  many  instances  which  suggest  that  at  the 
time  when  his  confidence  in  himself  was  full  grown  his 
disposition,  if  any,  to  interfere  was  well  under  control. 
It  is  also  one  of  the  indications  that  his  attention 
was  alert  in  many  matters  in  which  his  hand  was 
not  seen. 

He  was  no  financier,  and  that  important  part  of  the 
history  of  the  war,  Northern  finance,  concerns  us  little. 
The  real  economic  strength  of  the  North  was  immense, 
for  immigration  and  development  were  going  on  so  fast, 
that,  for  all  the  strain  of  the  war,  production  and  ex- 
ports increased.  But  the  superficial  disturbance  caused 
by  borrowing  and  the  issue  of  paper  money  was  great, 
and,  though  the  North  never  bore  the  pinching  that  was 
endured  in  the  South,  it  is  an  honourable  thing  that,  for 
all  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  and  for  all  the  trouble 


254  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  occurred  in  business  when  the  premium  on  gold 
often  fluctuated  between  40  and  60  and  on  one  occasion 
rose  to  185,  neither  the  solid  working  class  of  the  coun- 
try generally  nor  the  solid  business  class  of  New  York 
were  deeply  affected  by  the  grumbling  at  the  duration  of 
the  war.  The  American  verdict  upon  the  financial  policy 
of  Chase,  a  man  of  intellect  but  new  to  such  affairs,  is 
one  of  high  praise.  Lincoln  left  him  free  in  that  policy. 
He  had  watched  the  acts  and  utterances  of  his  chief  con- 
temporaries closely  and  early  acquired  a  firm  belief  in 
Chase's  ability.  How  much  praise  is  due  to  the  Presi- 
dent, who  for  this  reason  kept  Chase  in  his  Cabinet,  a 
later  part  of  this  story  may  show. 

One  function  of  Government  was  that  of  the  President 
alone.  An  English  statesman  is  alleged  to  have  said 
upon  becoming  Prime  Minister,  "  I  had  important  and 
interesting  business  in  my  old  office,  but  now  my  chief 
duty  will  be  to  create  undeserving  Peers."  Lincoln,  in 
the  anxious  days  that  followed  his  first  inauguration,  once 
looked  especially  harassed;  a  Senator  said  to  himt 
"  What  is  the  matter,  Mr.  President?  Is  there  bad  news 
from  Fort  Sumter?"  "Oh,  no,"  he  answered,  "it's 
the  Post  Office  at  Baldinsville."  The  patronage  of  the 
President  was  enormous,  including  the  most  trifling  offices 
under  Government,  such  as  village  postmasterships.  In 
the  appointment  to  local  offices,  he  was  expected  to  con- 
sult the  local  Senators  and  Representatives  of  his  own 
party,  and  of  course  to  choose  men  who  had  worked  for 
the  party.  In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  decent  compe- 
tence for  the  office  in  the  people  so  recommended  might 
be  presumed.  The  established  practice  further  required 
that  a  Republican  President  on  coming  in  should  replace 
with  good  Republicans  most  of  the  nominees  of  the  late 
Democratic  administration,  which  had  done  the  like  in 
its  day.  Lincoln's  experience  after  a  while  led  him  to 
prophesy  that  the  prevalence  of  office-seeking  would  be 
the  ruin  of  American  politics,  but  it  certainly  never  oc- 
curred to  him  to  try  and  break  down  then  the  accepted 
rule,  of  which  no  party  yet  complained.  It  would  have 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  255 

been  unmeasured  folly,  even  if  he  had  thought  of  it,  to 
have  taken  during  such  a  crisis  a  new  departure  which 
would  have  vexed  the  Republicans  far  more  than  it  would 
have  pleased  the  Democrats,  ^.nd  at  that  time  it  was 
really  of  great  consequence  that  public  officials  should  be 
men  of  known  loyalty  to  the  Union,  for  obviously  a  post- 
master of  doubtful  loyalty  might  do  mischief.  Lincoln, 
then,  except  in  dealing  with  posts  of  special  consequence, 
for  which  men  with  really  special  qualifications  were  to 
be  found,  frankly  and  without  a  question  took  as  the 
great  principle  of  his  patronage  the  fairest  possible  dis- 
tribution of  favours  among  different  classes  and  indi- 
viduals among  the  supporters  of  the  Government,  whom 
it  was  his  primary  duty  to  keep  together.  His  attitude  in 
the  whole  business  was  perfectly  understood  and  re- 
spected by  scrupulous  men  who  watched  politics  critically. 
It  was  the  cause  in  one  way  of  great  worry  to  him,  for, 
except  when  his  indignation  was  kindled,  he  was  abnor- 
mally reluctant  to  say  "  no," — he  once  shuddered  to 
think  what  would  have  happened  to  him  if  he  had  been 
a  woman,  but  was  consoled  by  the  thought  that  his  ugli- 
ness would  have  been  a  shield;  and  his  private  secre- 
taries accuse  him  of  carrying  out  his  principle  with  need- 
less and  even  ridiculous  care.  In  appointments  to  which 
the  party  principle  did  not  apply,  but  in  which  an  ordinary 
man  would  have  felt  party  prejudice,  Lincoln's  old  op- 
ponents were  often  startled  by  his  freedom  from  it.  If 
jobbery  be  the  right  name  for  his  persistent  endeavour 
to  keep  the  partisans  of  the  Union  pleased  and  united, 
his  jobbery  proved  to  have  one  shining  attribute  of 
virtue;  later  on,  when,  apart  from  the  Democratic  oppo- 
sition which  revived,  there  arose  in  the  Republican  party 
sections  hostile  to  himself,  the  claims  of  personal  adher- 
ence to  him  and  the  wavering  prospects  of  his  own  re- 
election seem,  from  recorded  instances,  to  have  affected 
his  choice  remarkably  little. 


256  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

4.  Foreign  Policy  and  England. 

The  question,  what  was  his  influence  upon  foreign 
policy,  is  more  difficult  than  the  general  praise  bestowed 
upon  it  might  lead  us  to  expect;  because,  though  he  is 
known  to  have  exercised  a  constant  supervision  over 
Seward,  that  influence  was  concealed  from  the  diplomatic 
world. 

For  at  least  the  first  eighteen  months  of  the  war,  apart 
from  lesser  points  of  quarrel, -a  real  danger  of  foreign 
intervention  hung  over  the  North.  The  danger  was  in- 
creased by  the  ambitions  of  Napoleon  III.  in  regard  to 
Mexico,  and  by  the  loss  and  suffering  caused  to  Eng- 
land, above  all,  not  merely  from  the  interruption  of  trade 
but  from  the  suspension  of  cotton  supplies  by  the  block- 
ade. From  the  first  there  was  the  fear  that  foreign 
powers  would  recognise  the  Southern  Confederacy  as  an 
independent  country;  that  they  were  then  likely  to  offer 
mediation  which  it  would  at  the  best  have  been  embar- 
rassing for  the  President  to  reject;  that  they  might  ulti- 
mately, when  their  mediation  had  been  rejected,  be 
tempted  to  active  intervention.  It  is  curious  that  the  one 
European  Government  which  was  recognised  all  along 
as  friendly  to  the  Republic  was  that  of  the  Czar,  Alex- 
ander II.  of  Russia,  who  in  this  same  year,  1861,  was 
accomplishing  the  project,  bequeathed  to  him  by  his 
father,  of  emancipating  the  serfs.  Mercier,  the  French 
Minister  in  Washington,  advised  his  Government  to 
recognise  the  South  Confederacy  as  early  as  March, 
1 86 1.  The  Emperor  of  the  French,  though  not  the 
French  people,  inclined  throughout  to  this  policy;  but 
he  would  not  act  apart  from  England,  and  the  English 
Government,  though  Americans  did  not  know  it,  had 
determined,  and  for  the  present  was  quite  resolute, 
against  any  hasty  action.  Nevertheless  an  almost  acci- 
dental cause  very  soon  brought  England  and  the  North 
within  sight  of  a  war  from  which  neither  people  was  in 
appearance  averse. 

Neither  the  foreign  policy  of  Lincoln's  Government 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  257 

nor,  indeed,  the  relations  of  England  and  America  from 
his  day  to  our  own  can  be  understood  without  some  study 
of  the  attitude  of  the  two  countries  to  each  other  during 
the  war.  If  we  could  put  aside  any  previous  judgment 
on  the  cause  as  between  North  and  South,  there  are 
still  some  marked  features  in  the  attitude  of  England 
during  the  war  which  every  Englishman  must  now  regret. 
It  should  emphatically  be  added  that  there  were  some 
upon  which  every  Englishman  should  look  back  with  sat- 
isfaction. Many  of  the  expressions  of  English  opinion 
at  that  time  betray  a  powerlessness  to  comprehend  an- 
other country  and  a  self-sufficiency  in  judging  it,  which, 
it  may  humbly  be  claimed,  were  not  always  and  are  not 
now  so  characteristic  of  Englishmen  as  they  were  in  that 
period  of  our  history,  in  many  ways  so  noble,  which  we 
associate  with  the  rival  influences  of  Palmerston  and  of 
Cobden.  It  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  ordinary  English 
gentlemen  started  with  a  leaning  towards  the  South; 
they  liked  Southerners  and  there  was  much  in  the  man- 
ners of  the  North,  and  in  the  experiences  of  Englishmen 
trading  with  or  investing  in  the  North,  which  did  not 
impress  them  favourably.  Many  Northerners  discov- 
ered something  snobbish  and  unsound  in  this  preference, 
but  they  were  not  quite  right.  With  this  leaning,  Eng- 
lishmen readily  accepted  the  plea  of  the  South  that  it 
was  threatened  with  intolerable  interference;  indeed  to 
this  day  it  is  hardly  credible  to  Englishmen  that  the 
grievance  against  which  the  South  arose  in  such  passion- 
ate revolt  was  so  unsubstantial  as  it  really  was.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  case  of  the  North  was  not  apprehended. 
How  it  came  to  pass,  in  the  intricate  and  usually  unin- 
teresting play  of  American  politics,  that  a  business  com- 
munity, which  had  seemed  pretty  tolerant  of  slavery,  was 
now  at  war  on  some  point  which  was  said  to  be  and  said 
not  to  be  slavery,  was  a  little  hard  to  understand.  Those 
of  us  who  remember  our  parents'  talk  of  the  American 
Civil  War  did  not  hear  from  them  the  true  and  fairly 
simple  explanation  of  the  war,  that  the  North  fought 
because  it  refused  to  connive  further  in  the  extension  of 


258  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

slavery,  and  would  not — could  not  decently — accept  the 
disruption  of  a  great  country  as  the  alternative.  It  is 
strictly  true  that  the  chivalrous  South  rose  in  blind  pas- 
sion for  a  cause  at  the  bottom  of  which  lay  the  narrowest 
of  pecuniary  interests,  while  the  over-sharp  Yankees, 
guided  by  a  sort  of  comic  backwoodsman,  fought,  whether 
wisely  or  not,  for  a  cause  as  untainted  as  ever  animated 
a  nation  in  arms.  But  it  seems  a  paradox  even  now,  and 
there  is  no  reproach  in  the  fact,  that  our  fathers,  who 
had  not  followed  the  vacillating  course  of  Northern  pol- 
itics hitherto,  did  not  generally  take  it  in.  We  shall  see 
in  a  later  chapter  how  Northern  statesmanship  added  to 
their  perplexity.  But  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  ashamed 
of  some  of  the  forms  in  which  English  feeling  showed  it- 
self and  was  well  known  in  the  North  to  show  itself. 
Not  only  the  articles  of  some  English  newspapers,  but 
the  private  letters  of  Americans  who  then  found  them- 
selves in  the  politest  circles  in  London,  are  unpleasant  to 
read  now.  It  is  painful,  too,  that  a  leader  of  political 
thought  like  Cobden  should  even  for  a  little  while — and 
it  was  only  a  little  while — have  been  swayed  in  such  a 
matter  by  a  sympathy  relatively  so  petty  as  agreement 
with  the  Southern  doctrine  of  Free  Trade.  We  might 
now  call  it  worthier  of  Prussia  than  of  England  that  a 
great  Englishman  like  Lord  Salisbury  (then  Lord  Robert 
Cecil)  should  have  expressed  friendship  for  the  South 
as  a  good  customer  of  ours,  and  antagonism  for  the 
North  as  a  rival  in  our  business.  When  such  men  as 
these  said  such  things  they  were,  of  course,  not  brutally 
indifferent  to  right,  they  were  merely  blind  to  the  fact 
that  a  very  great  and  plain  issue  of  right  and  wrong  was 
really  involved  in  the  war.  Gladstone,  to  take  another 
instance,  was  not  blind  to  that,  but  with  irritating  mis- 
apprehension he  protested  against  the  madness  of  plung- 
ing into  war  to  propagate  the  cause  of  emancipation. 
Then  came  in  his  love  of  small  states,  and  from  his 
mouth,  while  he  was  a  Cabinet  Minister,  came  the  im- 
pulsive pronouncement,  bitterly  regretted  by  him  and 
bitterly  resented  in  the  North :  "  Jefferson  Davis  and 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  259 

other  leaders  of  the  South  have  made  an  army;  they  are 
making,  it  appears,  a  navy;  and  they  have  made — what 
is  more  than  either — they  have  made  a  nation."  Many 
other  Englishmen  simply  sympathised  with  the  weaker 
side;  many  too,  it  should  be  confessed,  with  the  appar- 
ently weaker  side  which  they  were  really  persuaded  would 
win.  ("Win  the  battles,"  said  Lord  Robert  Cecil  to  a 
Northern  lady,  "  and  we  Tories  shall  come  round  at 
once.")  These  things  are  recalled  because  their  natural 
effect  in  America  has  to  be  understood.  What  is  really 
lamentable  is  not  that  in  this  distant  and  debatable  affair 
the  sympathy  of  so  many  inclined  to  the  South,  but  that, 
when  at  least  there  was  a  Northern  side,  there  seemed 
at  first  to  be  hardly  any  capable  of  understanding  or 
being  stirred  by  it.  Apart  from  politicians  there  were 
only  two  Englishmen  of  the  first  rank,  Tennyson  and 
Darwin,  who,  whether  or  not  they  understood  the  matter 
in  detail,  are  known  to  have  cared  from  their  hearts  for 
the  Northern  cause.  It  is  pleasant  to  associate  with 
these  greater  names  that  of  the  author  of  "  Tom  Brown." 
The  names  of  those  hostile  to  the  North  or  apparently 
quite  uninterested  are  numerous  and  surprising.  Even 
Dickens,  who  had  hated  slavery,  and  who  in  "  Martin 
Chuzzlewit  "  had  appealed  however  bitterly  to  the  higher 
national  spirit  which  he  thought  latent  in  America,  now, 
when  that  spirit  had  at  last  and  in  deed  asserted  itself, 
gave  way  in  his  letters  to  nothing  but  hatred  of  the 
whole  country.  And  a  disposition  like  this — explicable 
but  odious — did  no  doubt  exist  in  the  England  of  those 
days. 

There  is,  however,  quite  another  aspect  of  this  ques- 
tion besides  that  which  has  so  painfully  impressed  many 
American  memories.  When  the  largest  manufacturing 
industry  of  England  was  brought  near  to  famine  by  the 
blockade,  the  voice  of  the  stricken  working  population 
was  loudly  and  persistently  uttered  on  the  side  of  the 
North.  There  has  been  no  other  demonstration  so 
splendid  of  the  spirit  which  remains  widely  diffused 
among  individual  English  working  men  and  which  at  one 


260  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

time  animated  labour  as  a  concentrated  political  force. 
John  Bright,  who  completely  grasped  the  situation  in 
America,  took  a  stand,  in  which  J.  S.  Mill,  W.  E. 
Forster,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll  share  his  credit,  but 
which  did  peculiar  and  great  honour  to  him  as  a  Quaker 
who  hated  war.  But  there  is  something  more  that  must 
be  said.  The  conduct  of  the  English  Government,  sup- 
ported by  the  responsible  leaders  of  the  Opposition,  was 
at  that  time,  no  less  than  now,  the  surest  indication  of 
the  more  deep-seated  feelings  of  the  real  bulk  of  Eng- 
lishmen on  any  great  question  affecting  our  international 
relations;  and  the  attitude  of  the  Government,  in  which 
Lord  Palmerston  was  Prime  Minister  and  Lord  John 
Russell  Foreign  Secretary,  and  with  which  in  this  matter 
Conservative  leaders  like  Disraeli  and  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  entirely  concurred,  was  at  the  very  least  free 
from  grave  reproach.  Lord  John  Russell,  and,  there 
can  be  little  doubt,  his  colleagues  generally,  regarded 
slavery  as  an  "  accursed  institution,"  but  they  felt  no 
anger  with  the  people  of  the  South  for  it,  because,  as 
he  said,  "  we  gave  them  that  curse  and  ours  were  the 
hands  from  which  they  received  that  fatal  gift " ;  in 
Lord  John  at  least  the  one  overmastering  sentiment  upon 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  was  that  of  sheer  pain  that  "  a 
great  Republic,  which  has  enjoyed  institutions  under 
which  the  people  have  been  free  and  happy,  is  placed  in 
jeopardy."  Their  insight  into  American  affairs  did  not 
go  deep;  but  the  more  seriously  we  rate  "the  strong 
antipathy  to  the  North,  the  strong  sympathy  with  the 
South,  and  the  passionate  wish  to  have  cotton,"  of  which 
a  Minister,  Lord  Granville,  wrote  at  the  time,  the  greater 
is  the  credit  due  both  to  the  Government  as  a  whole  and 
to  Disraeli  for  having  been  conspicuously  unmoved  by 
these  considerations;  and  "the  general  approval  from 
Parliament,  the  press,  and  the  public,"  which,  as  Lord 
Granville  added,  their  policy  received,  is  creditable  too. 
It  is  perfectly  true,  as  will  be  seen  later,  that  at  one  dark 
moment  in  the  fortunes  of  the  North,  the  Government 
very  cautiously  considered  the  possibility  of  intervention. 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  261 

But  Disraeli,  to  whom  a  less  patriotic  course  would  have 
offered  a  party  advantage,  recalled  to  them  their  own 
better  judgment;  and  it  is  impossible  to  read  their  cor- 
respondence on  this  question  without  perceiving  that  in 
this  they  were  actuated  by  no  hostility  to  the  North,  but 
by  a  sincere  belief  that  the  cause  of  the  North  was  hope- 
less and  that  intervention,  with  a  view  to  stopping  blood- 
shed, might  prove  the  course  of  honest  friendship  to  all 
America.  Englishmen  of  a  later  time  have  become 
deeply  interested  in  America,  and  may  wish  that  their 
fathers  had  better  understood  the  great  issue  of  the 
Civil  War,  but  it  is  matter  for  pride,  which  in  honesty 
should  be  here  asserted,  that  with  many  selfish  interests 
in  this  contest,  of  which  they  were  most  keenly  aware, 
Englishmen,  in  their  capacity  as  a  nation,  acted  with 
complete  integrity. 

But  for  our  immediate  purpose  the  object  of  thus  re- 
viewing a  subject  on  which  American  historians  have 
lavished  much  research  is  to  explain  the  effect  produced 
in  America  by  demonstrations  of  strong  antipathy  and 
sympathy  in  England.  The  effect  in  some  ways  has  been 
long  lasting.  The  South  caught  at  every  mark  of  sym- 
pathy with  avidity,  was  led  by  its  politicians  to  expect 
help,  received  none,  and  became  resentful.  It  is  surpris- 
ing to  be  told,  but  may  be  true,  that  the  embers  of  this 
resentment  became  dangerous  to  England  in  the  autumn 
of  1914.  In  the  North  the  memory  of  an  antipathy  which 
was  almost  instantly  perceived  has  burnt  deep — as  many 
memoirs,  for  instance  those  recently  published  by  Sen- 
ator Lodge,  show — into  the  minds  of  precisely  those 
Americans  to  whom  Englishmen  have  ever  since  been  the 
readiest  to  accord  their  esteem.  There  were  many  men 
in  the  North  with  a  ready-made  dislike  of  England,  but 
there  were  many  also  whose  sensitiveness  to  English 
opinion,  if  in  some  ways  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate,  was 
intense.  Republicans  such  as  James  Russell  Lowell  had 
writhed  under  the  reproaches  cast  by  Englishmen  upon 
the  acquiescence  of  all  America  in  slavery;  they  felt  that 
the  North  had  suddenly  cut  off  this  reproach  and  staked 


262  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

everything  on  the  refusal  to  give  way  to  slavery  any 
further;  they  looked  now  for  expressions  of  sympathy 
from  many  quarters  in  England;  but  in  the  English  news- 
papers which  they  read  and  the  reports  of  Americans  in 
England  they  found  evidence  of  nothing  but  dislike. 
There  soon  came  evidence,  as  it  seemed  to  the  whole 
North,  of  actually  hostile  action  on  the  part  of  the 
British  Government.  It  issued  a  Proclamation  enjoining 
neutrality  upon  British  subjects.  This  was  a  matter  of 
course  on  the  outbreak  of  what  was  nothing  less  than 
war;  but  Northerners  thought  that  at  least  some  courte- 
ous explanation  should  first  have  been  made  to  their 
Government,  and  there  were  other  matters  which  they 
misinterpreted  as  signs  of  an  agreement  of  England  with 
France  to  go  further  and  open  diplomatic  relations  with 
the  Confederate  Government.  Thus  alike  in  the  most 
prejudiced  and  in  the  most  enlightened  quarters  in  the 
North  there  arose  an  irritation  which  an  Englishman 
must  see  to  have  been  natural  but  can  hardly  think  to 
have  been  warranted  by  the  real  facts. 

Here  came  in  the  one  clearly  known  and  most  cer- 
tainly happy  intervention  of  Lincoln's  in  foreign  affairs. 
Early  in  May  Seward  brought  to  him  the  draft  of  a 
vehement  despatch,  telling  the  British  Government  per- 
emptorily what  the  United  States  would  not  stand,  and 
framed  in  a  manner  which  must  have  frustrated  any  at- 
tempt by  Adams  in  London  to  establish  good  relations 
with  Lord  John  Russell.  That  draft  now  exists  with 
the  alterations  made  in  Lincoln's  own  hand.  With  a  few 
touches,  some  of  them  very  minute,  made  with  the  skill 
of  a  master  of  language  and  of  a  life-long  peacemaker, 
he  changed  the  draft  into  a  firm  but  entirely  courteous 
despatch.  In  particular,  instead  of  requiring  Adams,  as 
Seward  would  have  done,  to  read  the  whole  despatch  to 
Russell  and  leave  him  with  a  copy  of  it,  he  left  it  to  the 
man  on  the  spot  to  convey  its  sense  in  what  manner  he 
judged  best.  Probably,  as  has  been  claimed  for  him,  his 
few  penstrokes  made  peaceful  relations  easy  when 
Seward's  despatch  would  have  made  them  almost  im- 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  263 

possible;  certainly  a  study  of  this  document  will  prove 
both  his  strange,  untutored  diplomatic  skill  and  the  gen- 
eral soundness  of  his  view  of  foreign  affairs. 

Now,  however,  followed  a  graver  crisis  in  which  his 
action  requires  some  discussion.  Messrs.  Mason  and 
Slidell  were  sent  by  the  Confederate  Government  as  their 
emissaries  to  England  and  France.  They  got  to  Havana 
and  there  took  ship  again  on  the  British  steamer  Trent. 
A  watchful  Northern  sea  captain  overhauled  the  Trent, 
took  Mason  and  Slidell  off  her,  and  let  her  go.  If  he 
had  taken  the  course,  far  more  inconvenient  to  the  Trent, 
of  bringing  her  into  a  Northern  harbour,  where  a  North- 
ern Prize  Court  might  have  adjudged  these  gentlemen 
to  be  bearers  of  enemy  despatches,  he  would  have  been 
within  the  law.  As  it  was  he  violated  well-established 
usage,  and  no  one  has  questioned  the  right  and  even  the 
duty  of  the  British  Government  to  demand  the  release 
of  the  prisoners.  This  they  did  in  a  note  of  which  the 
expression  was  made  milder  by  the  wish  of  the  Queen 
(conveyed  in  almost  the  last  letter  of  the  Prince  Con- 
sort), but  which  required  compliance  within  a  fortnight. 
Meanwhile  Secretary  Welles  had  approved  the  sea  cap- 
tain's action.  The  North  was  jubilant  at  the  capture, 
the  more  so  because  Mason  and  Slidell  were  Southern 
statesmen  of  the  lower  type  and  held  to  be  specially  ob- 
noxious; and  the  House  of  Representatives,  to  make  mat- 
ters worse,  voted  its  approval  of  what  had  been  done. 
Lincoln,  on  the  very  day  when  the  news  of  the  capture 
came,  had  seen  and  said  privately  that  on  the  principles 
which  America  had  itself  upheld  in  the  past  the  prisoners 
would  have  to  be  given  up  with  an  apology.  But  there 
is  evidence  that  he  now  wavered,  and  that,  bent  as  he 
was  on  maintaining  a  united  North,  he  was  still  too  dis- 
trustful of  his  own  better  judgment  as  against  that  of 
the  public.  At  this  very  time  he  was  already  on  other 
points  in  painful  conflict  with  many  friends.  In  any  case 
he  submitted  to  Seward  a  draft  despatch  making  the  ill- 
judged  proposal  of  arbitration.  He  gave  way  to  Seward, 
but  at  the  Cabinet  meeting  on  Christmas  Eve,  at  which 


264  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Seward  submitted  a  despatch  yielding  to  the  British  de- 
mand, it  is  reported  that  Lincoln,  as  well  as  Chase  and 
others,  was  at  first  reluctant  to  agree,  and  that  it  was 
Bates  and  Seward  that  persuaded  the  Cabinet  to  a  just 
and  necessary  surrender. 

This  was  the  last  time  that  there  was  serious  friction 
in  the  actual  intercourse  of  the  two  Governments.  The 
lapse  of  Great  Britain  in  allowing  the  famous  Alabama 
to  sail  was  due  to  delay  and  misadventure  (u  week-ends  " 
or  the  like)  in  the  proceedings  of  subordinate  officials, 
and  was  never  defended,  and  the  numerous  minor  con- 
troversies that  arose,  as  well  as  the  standing  disagree- 
ment as  to  the  law  of  blockade  never  reached  the  point 
of  danger.  For  all  this  great  credit  was  due  to  Lord 
Lyons  and  to  C.  F.  Adams,  and  to  Seward  also,  when 
he  had  a  little  sobered  down,  but  it  might  seem  as  if  the 
credit  commonly  given  to  Lincoln  by  Americans  rested 
on  little  but  the  single  happy  performance  with  the  earlier 
despatch  which  has  been  mentioned.  Adams  and  Lyons 
were  not  aware  of  his  beneficent  influence — the  papers 
of  the  latter  contain  little  reference  to  him  beyond  a 
kindly  record  of  a  trivial  conversation,  at  the  end  of 
which,  as  the  Ambassador  was  going  for  a  holiday  to 
England,  the  President  said,  "  Tell  the  English  people 
I  mean  them  no  harm."  Yet  it  is  evident  that  Lincoln's 
supporters  in  America,  the  writer  of  the  Biglow  Papers, 
for  instance,  ascribed  to  him  a  wise,  restraining  power 
in  the  Trent  dispute.  What  is  more,  Lincoln  later 
claimed  this  for  himself.  Two  or  three  years  later,  in 
one  of  the  confidences  with  which  he  often  startled  men 
who  were  but  slight  acquaintances,  but  who  generally 
turned  out  worthy  of  confidence,  he  exclaimed  with  em- 
phatic self-satisfaction,  "  Seward  knows  that  I  am  his 
master,"  and  recalled  with  satisfaction  how  he  had  forced 
Seward  to  yield  to  England  in  the  Trent  affair.  It  would 
have  been  entirely  unlike  him  to  claim  praise  when  it  was 
wholly  undue  to  him;  we  find  him,  for  example,  writing 
to  Fox,  of  the  Navy  Department,  about  "  a  blunder 
which  was  probably  in  part  mine,  and  certainly  was  not 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  265 

yours";  so  that  a  puzzling  question  arises  here.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  Lincoln,  who  did  not  press  his  pro- 
posal of  arbitration,  really  manoeuvred  Seward  and  the 
Cabinet  into  full  acceptance  of  the  British  demands  by 
making  them  see  the  consequences  of  any  other  action. 
It  is  also,  however,  likely  enough  that,  being,  as  he  was, 
interested  in  arbitration  generally,  he  was  too  inexperi- 
enced to  see  the  inappropriateness  of  the  proposal  in  this 
case.  If  so,  we  may  none  the  less  credit  him  with  having 
forced  Seward  to  work  for  peace  and  friendly  relations 
with  Great  Britain,  and  made  that  minister  the  agent, 
more  skilful  than  himself,  of  a  peaceful  resolution  which 
in  its  origin  was  his  own. 

5.   The  Great  Questions  of  Domestic  Policy. 

The  larger  questions  of  civil  policy  which  arose  out  of 
the  fact  of  the  war,  and  which  weighed  heavily  on  Lin- 
coln before  the  end  of  1861,  can  be  related  with  less 
intricate  detail  if  the  fundamental  point  of  difficulty 
is  made  clear. 

Upon  July  4  Congress  met.  In  an  able  Message  which 
was  a  skilful  but  simple  appeal  not  only  to  Congress,  but 
to  the  "  plain  people,"  the  President  set  forth  the  nature 
of  the  struggle  as  he  conceived  it,  putting  perhaps  in  its 
most  powerful  form  the  contention  that  the  Union  was 
indissoluble,  and  declaring  that  the  "  experiment "  of 
"  our  popular  government "  would  have  failed  once  for 
all  if  it  did  not  prove  that  "  when  ballots  have  fairly  and 
constitutionally  decided,  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal 
back  to  bullets."  He  recounted  the  steps  which  he  had 
taken  since  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter,  some  of 
which  might  be  held  to  exceed  his  constitutional  authority 
as  indeed  they  did,  saying  he  would  have  been  false  to 
his  trust  if  for  fear  of  such  illegality  he  had  let  the  whole 
Constitution  perish,  and  asking  that,  if  necessary,  Con- 
gress should  ratify  them.  He  appealed  to  Congress  now 
to  do  its  part,  and  especially  he  appealed  for  such  prompt 
and  adequate  provision  of  money  and  men  as  would  en- 


266  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

able  the  war  to  be  speedily  brought  to  a  close.  Congress, 
with  but  a  few  dissentient  voices,  chiefly  from  the  border 
States,  approved  all  that  he  had  done,  and  voted  the  sup- 
plies that  he  had  asked.  Then,  by  a  resolution  of  both 
Houses,  it  defined  the  object  of  the  war;  the  war  was 
not  for  any  purpose  of  conquest  or  subjugation,  or  of 
"  overthrowing  or  interfering  with  the  rights  or  estab- 
lished institutions  "  of  the  Southern  States;  it  was  solely 
"  to  preserve  the  Union  with  all  the  dignity,  equality, 
and  rights  of  the  several  States  unimpaired." 

In  this  resolution  may  be  found  the  clue  to  the  supreme 
political  problem  with  which,  side  by  side  with  the  con- 
duct of  the  war,  Lincoln  was  called  upon  to  grapple  un- 
ceasingly for  the  rest  of  his  life.  That  problem  lay  in 
the  inevitable  change,  as  the  war  dragged  on,  of  the 
political  object  involved  in  it.  The  North  as  yet  was  not 
making  war  upon  the  institutions  of  Southern  States,  in 
other  words  upon  slavery,  and  it  would  have  been  wrong 
to  do  so.  It  was  simply  asserting  the  supremacy  of  law 
by  putting  down  what  every  man  in  the  North  regarded 
as  rebellion.  That  rebellion,  it  seemed  likely,  would 
completely  subside  after  a  decisive  defeat  or  two  of  the 
Southern  forces.  The  law  and  the  Union  would  then 
have  been  restored  as  before.  A  great  victory  would  in 
fact  have  been  won  over  slavery,  for  the  policy  of  re- 
stricting its  further  spread  would  have  prevailed,  but  the 
constitutional  right  of  each  Southern  State  to  retain 
slavery  within  its  borders  was  not  to  be  denied  by  those 
who  were  fighting,  as  they  claimed,  for  the  Constitution. 

Such  at  first  was  the  position  taken  up  by  an  unani- 
mous Congress.  It  was  obviously  in  accord  with  those 
political  principles  of  Lincoln  which  have  been  examined 
in  a  former  chapter.  More  than  that,  it  was  the  position 
which,  as  he  thought,  his  official  duty  as  President  im- 
posed on  him.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  any  English- 
man to  follow  his  course  as  the  political  situation  devel- 
oped. He  was  neither  a  dictator,  nor  an  English  Prime 
Minister.  He  was  first  and  foremost  an  elected  officer 
with  powers  and  duties  prescribed  by  a  fixed  Constitution 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  267 

which  he  had  sworn  to  obey.  His  oath  was  continually 
present  to  his  mind. 

He  was  there  to  uphold  the  Union  and  the  laws,  with 
just  so  much  infraction  of  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  no 
more,  as  might  be  obviously  necessary  if  the  Union  and 
the  whole  fabric  of  law  were  not  to  perish. 

The  mere  duration  of  the  war  altered  of  necessity  the 
policy  of  the  North  and  of  the  President.  Their  task 
had  presented  itself  as  in  theory  the  "  suppression  of  an 
unlawful  combination"  within  their  country;  it  became 
in  manifest  fact  the  reabsorption  of  a  country  now  hos- 
tile, with  which  reunion  was  possible  only  if  slavery,  the 
fundamental  cause  of  difference,  was  uprooted. 

As  the  hope  of  a  speedy  victory  and  an  easy  settlement 
vanished,  wide  differences  of  opinion  appeared  again  in 
the  North,  and  the  lines  on  which  this  cleavage  proceeded 
very  soon  showed  themselves.  There  were  those  who 
gladly  welcomed  the  idea  of  a  crusade  against  slavery, 
and  among  them  was  an  unreasonable  section  of  so-called 
Radicals.  These  resented  that  delay  in  a  policy  of  whole- 
sale liberation  which  was  enforced  by  legal  and  constitu- 
tional scruples,  and  by  such  practical  considerations  as 
the  situation  in  the  slave  States  which  adhered  to  the 
North.  There  was,  on  the  other  hand,  a  Democratic 
party  Opposition  which  before  long  began  to  revive.  It 
combined  many  shades  of  opinion.  There  were  sup- 
porters or  actual  agents  of  the  South,  few  at  first  and 
very  quiet,  but  ultimately  developing  a  treasonable  ac- 
tivity. There  were  those  who  constituted  themselves  the 
guardians  of  legality  and  jealously  criticised  all  the  meas- 
ures of  emergency  which  became  more  or  less  necessary. 
Of  the  bulk  of  the  Democrats  it  would  probably  be  fair 
to  say  that  their  conscious  intention  throughout  was  to 
be  true  to  the  Union,  but  that  throughout  they  were  beset 
by  a  respect  for  Southern  rights  which  would  have  gone 
far  to  paralyse  the  arm  of  the  Government.  Lastly, 
there  were  Republicans,  by  no  means  in  sympathy  with 
the  Democratic  view,  who  became  suspect  to  their  Rad- 
ical fellows  and  were  vaguely  classed  together  as  Con- 


268  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

servatives.  This  term  may  be  taken  to  cover  men  simply 
of  moderate  and  cautious,  or  in  some  cases,  of  variable 
disposition,  but  it  included,  too,  some  men  who,  while 
rigorous  against  the  South,  were  half-hearted  in  their 
detestation  of  slavery. 

So  far  as  Lincoln's  private  opinions  were  concerned,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  rank  him  in  any  of  these 
sections.  He  had  as  strong  a  sympathy  with  the  South- 
ern people  as  any  Democrat,  but  he  was  for  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Union  absolutely  and  without  compromise. 
He  was  the  most  cautious  of  men,  but  his  caution  veiled 
a  detestation  of  slavery  of  which  he  once  said  that  he 
could  not  remember  the  time  when  he  had  not  felt  it.  It 
was  his  business,  so  far  as  might  be,  to  retain  the  support 
of  all  sections  in  the  North  to  the  Union.  In  the  course, 
full  of  painful  deliberation,  which  we  shall  see  him  pur- 
suing, he  tried  to  be  guided  by  a  two-fold  principle  which 
he  constantly  avowed.  The  Union  was  to  be  restored 
with  as  few  departures  from  the  ways  of  the  Constitu- 
tion as  was  possible ;  but  such  departures  became  his  duty 
whenever  he  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  they  were 
needful  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union. 

Before  the  war  was  four  months  old,  the  inevitable 
subject  of  dispute  between  Northern  parties  had  begun 
to  trouble  Lincoln.  As  soon  as  a  Northern  force  set 
foot  on  Southern  soil  slaves  were  apt  to  escape  to  it,  and 
the  question  arose,  what  should  the  Northern  general  do 
with  them,  for  he  was  not  there  to  make  war  on  the 
private  property  of  Southern  citizens.  General  Butler 
— a  newspaper  character  of  some  fame  or  notoriety 
throughout  the  war — commanded  at  Fort  Monroe,  a 
point  on  the  coast  of  Virginia  which  was  always  held  by 
the  North.  He  learnt  that  the  slaves  who  fled  to  him 
had  been  employed  on  making  entrenchments  for  the 
Southern  troops,  so  he  adopted  a  view,  which  took  the 
fancy  of  the  North,  that  they  were  "  contraband  of 
war,"  and  should  be  kept  from  their  owners.  The  cir- 
cumstances in  which  slaves  could  thus  escape  varied  so 
much  that  great  discretion  must  be  left  to  the  general  on 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  269 

the  spot,  and  the  practice  of  generals  varied.  Lincoln 
was  well  content  to  leave  the  matter  so.  Congress,  how- 
ever, passed  an  Act  by  which  private  property  could 
be  confiscated,  if  used  in  aid  of  the  "  insurrection  "  but 
not  otherwise,  and  slaves  were  similarly  dealt  with.  This 
moderate  provision  as  to  slaves  met  with  a  certain  amount 
of  opposition;  it  raised  an  alarming  question  in  slave 
States  like  Missouri  that  had  not  seceded.  Lincoln  him- 
self seems  to  have  been  averse  to  any  legislation  on  the 
subject.  He  had  deliberately  concentrated  his  mind,  or, 
as  his  critics  would  have  said,  narrowed  it  down  to  the 
sole  question  of  maintaining  the  Union,  and  was  resolved 
to  treat  all  other  questions  as  subordinate  to  this. 

Shortly  after,  there  reappeared  upon  the  political 
scene  a  leader  with  what  might  seem  a  more  sympathetic 
outlook.  This  was  Fremont,  Lincoln's  predecessor  as 
the  Republican  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  Fremont 
was  one  of  those  men  who  make  brilliant  and  romantic 
figures  in  their  earlier  career,  and  later  appear  to  have 
lost  all  solid  qualities.  It  must  be  recalled  that,  though 
scarcely  a  professional  soldier  (for  he  had  held  a  com- 
mission, but  served  only  in  the  Ordnance  Survey)  he  had 
conducted  a  great  exploring  expedition,  had  seen  fighting 
as  a  free-lance  in  California,  and,  it  is  claimed,  had  with 
his  handful  of  men  done  much  to  win  that  great  State 
from  Mexico.  Add  to  this  that  he,  a  Southerner  by 
birth,  was  known  among  the  leaders  who  had  made  Cali- 
fornia a  free  State,  and  it  is  plain  how  appropriate  it 
must  have  seemed  when  he  was  set  to  command  the 
Western  Department,  which  for  the  moment  meant 
Missouri.  Here  by  want  of  competence,  and,  which  was 
more  surprising,  lethargy  he  had  made  a  present  of  some 
successes  to  a  Southern  invading  force,  and  had  sacrificed 
the  promising  life  of  General  Lyon.  Lincoln,  loath  to 
remove  him,  had  made  a  good  effort  at  helping  him  out 
by  tactfully  persuading  a  more  experienced  general  to 
serve  as  a  subordinate  on  his  staff.  At  the  end  of  August 
Fremont  suddenly  issued  a  proclamation  establishing 
martial  law  throughout  Missouri.  This  contained  other 


270  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dangerous  provisions,  but  above  all  it  liberated  the 
slaves  and  confiscated  the  whole  property  of  all  persons 
proved  (before  Court  Martial)  to  have  taken  active  part 
with  the  enemy  in  the  field.  It  is  obvious  that  such  a 
measure  was  liable  to  shocking  abuse,  that  it  was  certain 
to  infuriate  many  friends  of  the  Union,  and  that  it  was 
in  conflict  with  the  law  which  Congress  had  just  passed 
on  the  subject.  To  Lincoln's  mind  it  presented  the  alarm- 
ing prospect  that  it  might  turn  the  scale  against  the 
Union  cause  in  the  still  pending  deliberations  in  Kentucky. 
Lincoln's  overpowering  solicitude  on  such  a  point  is 
among  the  proofs  that  his  understanding  of  the  military 
situation,  however  elementary,  was  sound.  He  wished, 
characteristically,  that  Fremont  himself  should  withdraw 
his  Proclamation.  He  invited  him  to  withdraw  it  in 
private  letters  from  which  one  sentence  may  be  taken: 
4  You  speak  of  it  as  being  the  only  means  of  saving  the 
Government.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  itself  the  surrender 
of  the  Government.  Can  it  be  pretended  that  it  is  any 
longer  the  Government  of  the  United  States — any  gov- 
ernment of  constitution  and  laws — wherein  a  general  or 
a  president  may  make  permanent  rules  of  property  by 
proclamation?"  Fremont  preferred  to  make  Lincoln 
publicly  overrule  him,  which  he  did;  and  the  inevitable 
consequence  followed.  When  some  months  later,  the 
utter  military  disorganisation,  which  Fremont  let  arise 
while  he  busied  himself  with  politics,  and  the  scandalous 
waste,  out  of  which  his  flatterers  enriched  themselves, 
compelled  the  President  to  remove  him  from  his  com- 
mand, Fremont  became,  for  a  time  at  least,  to  patriotic 
crowds  and  to  many  intelligent,  upright  and  earnest  men 
from  St.  Louis  to  Boston,  the  chivalrous  and  pure-hearted 
soldier  of  freedom,  and  Lincoln,  the  soulless  politician, 
dead  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  who,  to  gratify  a  few  wire- 
pulling friends,  had  struck  this  hero  down  on  the  eve 
of  victory  to  his  army — an  army  which,  by  the  way,  he 
had  reduced  almost  to  nonentity. 

This  salient  instance  explains  well  enough  the  nature 
of  one  half  of  the  trial  which  Lincoln  throughout  the 


THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  271 

war  had  to  undergo.  Pursuing  the  restoration  of  the 
Union  with  a  thoroughness  which  must  estrange  from 
him  the  Democrats  of  the  North,  he  was  fated  from  the 
first  to  estrange  also  Radicals  who  were  generally  as 
devoted  to  the  Union  as  himself  and  with  whose  over- 
mastering hatred  of  slavery  he  really  sympathised.  In 
the  following  chapter  we  are  more  concerned  with  the 
other  half  of  his  trial,  the  war  itself.  Of  his  minor 
political  difficulties  few  instances  need  be  given — only  it 
must  be  remembered  that  they  were  many  and  involved, 
besides  delicate  questions  of  principle,  the  careful  sifting 
of  much  confident  hearsay;  and,  though  the  critics  of 
public  men  are  wont  to  forget  it,  that  there  are  only 
twenty-four  hours  in  the  day. 

But  the  year  1861  was  to  close  with  a  further  vexation 
that  must  be  related.  Secretary  Cameron  proved  in- 
capable on  the  business  side  of  war  administration. 
Waste  and  alleged  corruption  called  down  upon  him  a' 
searching  investigation  by  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Representatives.  He  had  not  added  to  his  own  consid- 
erable riches,  but  his  political  henchmen  had  grown  fat. 
The  displeasure  with  the  whole  Administration  was  the 
greater  because  the  war  was  not  progressing  favourably, 
or  at  all.  There  were  complaints  of  the  Naval  Depart- 
ment also,  but  politicians  testified  their  belief  in  the 
honesty  of  Welles  without  saying  a  word  for  Cameron. 
There  is  every  reason  to  think  he  was  not  personally 
dishonourable.  Lincoln  believed  in  his  complete  integ- 
rity, and  so  also  did  sterner  critics,  Chase,  an  apostle  of 
economy  and  uprightness,  and  Senator  Sumner.  But  he 
had  to  go.  He  opened  the  door  for  his  removal  by  a 
circular  to  generals  on  the  subject  of  slaves,  which  was 
comparable  to  Fremont's  Proclamation  and  of  which 
Lincoln  had  to  forbid  the  issue.  He  accepted  the  ap- 
pointment of  Minister  to  Russia,  and  when,  before  long, 
he  returned,  he  justified  himself  and  Lincoln's  judgment 
by  his  disinterested  friendship  and  support.  He  was 
removed  from  the  War  Office  at  the  end  of  December 
and  a  remarkable  incident  followed.  While  Lincoln's 


272  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

heart  was  still  set  on  his  law  practice,  the  prospect  of 
appearing  as  something  more  than  a  backwoods  attorney 
smiled  for  a  single  moment  on  him.  He  was  briefed  to 
appear  in  an  important  case  outside  Illinois  with  an 
eminent  lawyer  from  the  East,  Edwin  M.  Stanton;  but 
he  was  not  allowed  to  open  his  mouth,  for  Stanton 
snuffed  him  out  with  supreme  contempt,  and  he  returned 
home  crestfallen.  Stanton  before  the  war  was  a  strong 
Democrat,  but  hated  slavery.  In  the  last  days  of 
Buchanan's  Presidency  he  was  made  Attorney-General 
and  helped  much  to  restore  the  lost  credit  of  that  Ad- 
ministration. He  was  now  in  Washington,  criticising  the 
slow  conduct  of  the  war  with  that  explosive  fury  and 
scorn  which  led  him  to  commit  frequent  injustice  (at  the 
very  end  of  the  war  he  publicly  and  monstrously  accused 
Sherman  of  being  bribed  into  terms  of  peace  by  Southern 
gold),  which  concealed  from  most  eyes  his  real  kindness 
and  a  lurking  tenderness  of  heart,  but  which  made  him 
a  vigorous  administrator  intolerant  of  dishonesty  and  in- 
efficiency. He  was  more  contemptuous  of  Lincoln  than 
ever,  he  would  constantly  be  denouncing  his  imbecility, 
and  it  is  incredible  that  kind  friends  were  wanting  to 
convey  his  opinion  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln  made  him  Sec- 
retary of  War. 

Since  the  summer,  to  the  impatient  bewilderment  of 
the  Northern  people,  of  Congress,  now  again  in  session, 
and  of  the  President  himself,  their  armies  in  the  field 
were  accomplishing  just  nothing  at  all,  and,  as  this  agi- 
tating year,  1861,  closed,  a  deep  gloom  settled  on  the 
North,  to  be  broken  after  a  while  by  the  glare  of  recur- 
rent disaster. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH 

I.  Military  Policy  of  the  North. 

THE  story  of  the  war  has  here  to  be  told  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  civilian  administrator,  the  President; 
stirring  incidents  of  combat  and  much  else  of  interest 
must  be  neglected;  episodes  in  the  war  which  peculiarly 
concerned  him,  or  have  given  rise  to  controversy  about 
him,  must  be  related  lengthily.  The  President  was  an 
inexperienced  man.  It  should  be  said,  too — for  respect 
requires  perfect  frankness — that  he  was  one  of  an  in- 
experienced people.  The  Americans  had  conquered  their 
independence  from  Great  Britain  at  the  time  when  the 
ruling  factions  of  our  country  had  reached  their  utmost 
degree  of  inefficiency.  They  had  fought  an  indecisive 
war  with  us  in  1812-14,  while  our  main  business  was  to 
win  at  Salamanca  and  Vittoria.  These  experiences  in 
some  ways  warped  American  ideas  of  war  and  politics, 
and  their  influence  perhaps  survives  to  this  day.  The 
extent  of  the  President's  authority  and  his  position  in 
regard  to  the  advice  he  could  obtain  have  been  explained. 
An  examination  of  the  tangle  in  which  military  policy 
was  first  involved  may  make  the  chief  incidents  of  the 
war  throughout  easier  to  follow. 

Immediately  after  Bull  Run  McClellan  had  been  sum- 
moned to  Washington  to  command  the  army  of  the 
Potomac.  In  November,  Scott,  worn  out  by  infirmity, 
and  finding  his  authority  slighted  by  "  my  ambitious 
junior,"  retired,  and  thereupon  McClellan,  while  retain- 
ing his  immediate  command  upon  the  Potomac,  was  made 
for  the  time  General-in-Chief  over  all  the  armies  of  the 
North.  There  were,  it  should  be  repeated,  two  other 
principal  armies  besides  that  of  the  Potomac:  the  army 


274  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  Ohio,  of  which  General  Buell  was  given  command 
in  July;  and  that  of  the  West,  to  which  General  Halleck 
was  appointed,  though  Fremont  seems  to  have  retained 
independent  command  in  Missouri.  All  these  armies 
were  in  an  early  stage  of  formation  and  training,  and 
from  a  purely  military  point  of  view  there  could  be  no 
haste  to  undertake  a  movement  of  invasion  with  any  of 
them. 

Three  distinct  views  of  military  policy  were  presented 
to  Lincoln  in  the  early  days.  Scott,  as  soon  as  it  was 
clear  that  the  South  meant  real  fighting,  saw  how  serious 
its  resistance  would  be.  His  military  judgment  was  in 
favour  of  a  strictly  defensive  attitude  before  Washing- 
ton; of  training  the  volunteers  for  at  least  four  months 
in  healthy  camps;  and  of  then  pushing  a  large  army  right 
down  the  Mississippi  valley  to  New  Orleans,  making 
the  whole  line  of  that  river  secure,  and  establishing  a 
pressure  on  the  South  between  this  Western  army  and 
the  naval  blockade  which  must  slowly  have  strangled 
the  Confederacy.  He  was  aware  that  public  impatience 
might  not  allow  a  rigid  adherence  to  his  policy,  and  in 
fact,  when  his  view  was  made  public  before  Bull  Run, 
"  Scott's  Anaconda,"  coiling  itself  round  the  Confed- 
eracy, was  the  subject  of  general  derision.  The  view 
of  the  Northern  public  and  of  the  influential  men  in  Con- 
gress was  in  favour  of  speedy  and,  as  it  was  hoped, 
decisive  action,  and  this  was  understood  as  involving, 
whatever  else  was  done,  an  attempt  soon  to  capture 
Richmond.  In  McClellan's  view,  as  in  Scott's,  the  first 
object  was  the  full  preparation  of  the  Army,  but  he 
would  have  wished  to  wait  till  he  had  a  fully  trained 
force  of  273,000  men  on  the  Potomac,  and  a  powerful 
fleet  with  many  transports  to  support  his  movements; 
and,  when  he  had  all  this,  to  move  southwards  in  irre- 
sistible force,  both  advancing  direct  into  Virginia  and 
landing  at  points  on  the  coast,  subduing  each  of  the 
Atlantic  States  of  the  Confederacy  in  turn.  If  the  in- 
definite delay  and  the  overwhelming  force  which  his  fancy 
pictured  could  have  been  granted  him,  it  is  plain,  the 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  275 

military  critics  have  said,  that  "  he  could  not  have 
destroyed  the  Southern  armies — they  would  have  with- 
drawn inland,  and  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy  would 
have  remained  untouched."  But  neither  the  time  nor 
the  force  for  which  he  wished  could  be  allowed  him.  So 
he  had  to  put  aside  his  plan,  but  in  some  ways  perhaps 
it  still  influenced  him. 

It  would  have  been  impossible  to  disregard  the  wishes 
of  those,  who  in  the  last  resort  were  masters,  for  a 
vigorous  attempt  on  Richmond,  and  the  continually  un- 
successful attempts  that  were  made  did  serve  a  military 
purpose,  for  they  kept  up  a  constant  drain  upon  the 
resources  of  the  South.  In  any  well-thought-out  policy 
the  objects  both  of  Scott's  plan  and  of  the  popular  plan 
would  have  been  borne  in  mind.  That  no  such  policy 
was  consistently  followed  from  the  first  was  partly  a 
result  of  the  long-continued  difficulty  in  finding  any 
younger  man  who  could  adequately  take  the  place  of 
Scott;  it  was  not  for  a  want  of  clear  ideas,  right  or 
wrong,  on  Lincoln's  part. 

Only  two  days  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  he  put 
on  paper  his  own  view  as  to  the  future  employment  of 
the  three  armies.  He  thought  that  one  should  "  threaten  " 
Richmond;  that  one  should  move  from  Cincinnati,  in 
Ohio,  by  a  pass  called  Cumberland  Gap  in  Kentucky, 
upon  Knoxville  in  Eastern  Tennessee;  and  that  the  third, 
using  Cairo  on  the  Mississippi  as  its  base,  should  ad- 
vance upon  Memphis,  some  120  miles  further  south  on 
that  river.  Apparently  he  did  not  at  first  wish  to  com- 
mit the  army  of  the  Potomac  very  deeply  in  its  advance 
on  Richmond,  and  he  certainly  wished  throughout  that 
it  should  cover  Washington  against  any  possible  attack. 
Memphis  was  one  of  the  three  points  at  which  the  South- 
ern railway  system  touched  the  great  river  and  communi- 
cated with  the  States  beyond — Vicksburg  and  New 
Orleans,  much  further  south,  were  the  others.  Knox- 
ville again  is  a  point,  by  occupying  which,  the  Northern 
forces  would  have  cut  the  direct  railway  communication 
between  Virginia  and  the  West,  but  for  this  move  into 


276  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Eastern  Tennessee  Lincoln  had  other  reasons  nearer  his 
heart.  The  people  of  that  region  were  strongly  for  the 
Union;  they  were  invaded  by  the  Confederates  and  held 
down  by  severe  coercion,  and  distressing  appeals  from 
them  for  help  kept  arriving  through  the  autumn;  could 
they  have  been  succoured  and  their  mountainous  coun- 
try occupied  by  the  North,  a  great  stronghold  of  the 
Union  would,  it  seemed  to  Lincoln,  have  been  planted 
securely  far  into  the  midst  of  the  Confederacy.  There- 
fore he  persistently  urged  this  part  of  his  scheme  on  the 
attention  of  his  generals.  The  chief  military  objection 
raised  by  Buell  was  that  his  army  would  have  to  advance 
150  miles  from  the  nearest  base  of  supply  upon  a  rail- 
way; (for  200  miles  to  the  west  of  the  Alleghanies  there 
were  no  railways  running  from  north  to  south) .  To  meet 
this  Lincoln,  in  September,  urged  upon  a  meeting  of  im- 
portant Senators  and  Representatives  the  construction 
of  a  railway  line  from  Lexington  in  Kentucky  south- 
wards, but  his  hearers,  with  their  minds  narrowed  down 
to  an  advance  on  Richmond,  seem  to  have  thought  the 
relatively  small  cost  in  time  and  money  of  this  work  too 
great.  Lincoln  still  thought  an  expedition  to  Eastern 
Tennessee  practicable  at  once,  and  it  has  been  argued 
from  the  circumstances  in  which  one  was  made  nearly  two 
years  later  that  he  was  right.  It  would,  one  may  sup- 
pose, have  been  unwise  to  separate  the  armies  of  the 
Ohio  and  of  the  West  so  widely;  for  the  main  army  of 
the  Confederates  in  the  West,  under  their  most  trusted 
general,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  was  from  September 
onwards  in  South-western  Kentucky,  and  could  have 
struck  at  either  of  these  two  Northern  armies;  and  this 
was  in  Buell's  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  Lincoln's  ob- 
ject was  a  wise  one  in  itself  and  would  have  been  worth 
some  postponement  of  the  advance  along  the  Mississippi 
if  thereby  the  army  in  the  West  could  have  been  used  in 
support  of  it.  However  this  may  be,  the  fact  is  that 
Lincoln's  plan,  as  it  stood,  was  backed  up  by  McClellan; 
McClellan  was  perhaps  unduly  anxious  for  Buell  to 
move  on  Eastern  Tennessee,  because  this  would  have 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  277 

supported  the  invasion  of  Virginia  which  he  himself  was 
now  contemplating,  and  he  was  probably  forgetful  of 
the  West;  but  he  was  Lincoln's  highest  military  adviser 
and  his  capacity  was  still  trusted.  Buell's  own  view  was 
that,  when  he  moved,  it  should  be  towards  Western  Ten- 
nessee. He  would  have  had  a  railway  connection  behind 
him  all  his  way,  and  Albert  Johnston's  army  would  have 
lain  before  him.  He  wished  that  Halleck  meanwhile 
should  advance  up  the  courses  of  the  Tennessee  and 
Cumberland  Rivers;  Eastern  Tennessee  (he  may  have 
thought)  would  be  in  the  end  more  effectively  succoured; 
their  two  armies  would  thus  have  converged  on  John- 
ston's. Halleck  agreed  with  Buell  to  the  extent  of  dis- 
agreeing with  Lincoln  and  McClellan,  but  no  further. 
He  declined  to  move  in  concert  with  Buell.  Fremont 
had  disorganised  the  army  of  the  West,  and  Halleck, 
till  he  had  repaired  the  mischief,  permitted  only  certain 
minor  enterprises  under  his  command. 

Each  of  the  three  generals,  including  the  General-in- 
Chief,  who  was  the  Government's  chief  adviser,  was  set 
upon  his  own  immediate  purpose,  and  indisposed  to 
understanding  the  situation  of  the  others — Buell  perhaps 
the  least  so.  Each  of  them  had  at  first  a  very  sound 
reason,  the  unreadiness  of  his  army,  for  being  in  no  hurry 
to  move,  but  then  each  of  them  soon  appeared  to  be  a 
slow  or  unenterprising  commander.  Buell  was  perhaps 
unlucky  in  this,  for  his  whole  conduct  is  the  subject  of 
some  controversy;  but  he  did  appear  slow,  and  the  two 
others,  it  is  universally  agreed,  really  were  so.  As  1861 
drew  to  a  close,  it  became  urgent  that  something  should 
be  done  somewhere,  even  if  it  were  not  done  in  the  best 
possible  direction.  The  political  pressure  upon  the  Ad- 
ministration became  as  great  as  before  Bull  Run.  The 
army  of  the  Potomac  had  rapidly  become  a  fine  army, 
and  its  enemy,  in  no  way  superior,  lay  entrenching  at 
Manassas,  twenty  miles  in  front  of  it.  When  Lincoln 
grew  despondent  and  declared  that  "  if  something  was 
not  done  soon,  the  bottom  would  drop  out  of  the  whole 
concern,"  soldiers  remark  that  the  military  situation  was 


278  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

really  sound;  but  he  was  right,  for  a  people  can  hardly 
be  kept  up  to  the  pitch  of  a  high  enterprise  if  it  is  forced 
to  think  that  nothing  will  happen.  Before  the  end  of 
the  year  1861  military  reasons  for  waiting  were  no 
longer  being  urged;  McClellan  had  long  been  promising 
immediate  action,  Buell  and  Halleck  seemed  merely  un- 
able to  agree. 

In  later  days  when  Lincoln  had  learnt  much  by  ex« 
perience  it  is  hard  to  trace  the  signs  of  his  influence  in 
military  matters,  because,  though  he  followed  them 
closely,  he  was  commonly  in  full  agreement  with  his 
chief  general  and  he  invariably  and  rightly  left  him  free. 
At  this  stage,  when  his  position  was  more  difficult,  and 
his  guidance  came  from  common  sense  and  the  military 
books,  of  which,  ever  since  Bull  Run,  he  had  been  trying, 
amidst  all  his  work,  to  tear  out  the  heart,  there  is  evi- 
dence on  which  to  judge  the  intelligence  which  he  applied 
to  the  war.  Certainly  he  now  and  ever  after  looked  at 
the  matter  as  a  whole  and  formed  a  clear  view  of  it, 
which,  for  a  civilian  at  any  rate,  was  a  reasonable  view. 
Certainly  also  at  this  time  and  for  long  after  no  military 
adviser  attempted,  in  correcting  any  error  of  his,  to 
supply  him  with  a  better  opinion  equally  clear  and  com- 
prehensive. This  is  probably  why  some  Northern  mili- 
tary critics,  when  they  came  to  read  his  correspondence 
with  his  generals,  called  him,  as  his  chief  biographers 
were  tempted  to  think  him,  "  the  ablest  strategist  of  the 
war."  Grant  and  Sherman  did  not  say  this;  they  said, 
what  is  another  thing,  that  his  was  the  greatest  intellec- 
tual force  that  they  had  met  with.  Strictly  speaking,  he 
could  not  be  a  strategist.  If  he  were  so  judged,  he 
would  certainly  be  found  guilty  of  having,  till  Grant 
came  to  Washington,  unduly  scattered  his  forces.  He 
could  pick  out  the  main  objects;  but  as  to  how  to  econo- 
mise effort,  what  force  and  how  composed  and  equipped 
was  necessary  for  a  particular  enterprise,  whether  in 
given  conditions  of  roads,  weather,  supplies,  and  pre- 
vious fatigue,  a  movement  was  practicable,  and  how 
long  it  would  take,  anv  clever  subaltern  with  actual  ex- 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  279 

perience  of  campaigning  ought  to  have  been  a  better 
judge  than  he.  The  test,  which  the  reader  must  be 
asked  to  apply  to  his  conduct  of  the  war,  is  whether  he 
followed  duly  or  unduly  his  own  imperfect  judgment, 
whether,  on  the  whole,  he  gave  in  whenever  it  was  wise 
to  the  generals  under  him,  and  whether  he  did  so  with- 
out losing  his  broad  view  or  surrendering  his  ultimate 
purpose.  It  is  really  no  small  proof  of  strength  that, 
with  the  definite  judgments  which  he  constantly  formed, 
he  very  rarely  indeed  gave  imperative  orders  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief,  which  he  was,  to  any  general.  The  cir- 
cumstances, all  of  which  will  soon  appear,  in  which  he  was 
tempted  or  obliged  to  do  so,  are  only  the  few  marked 
exceptions  to  his  habitual  conduct.  There  are  significant 
contrary  instances  in  which  he  abstained  even  from  seek- 
ing to  know  his  general's  precise  intentions.  At  the  time 
which  has  just  been  reviewed,  when  the  scheme  of  the 
war  was  in  the  making,  his  correspondence  with  Buell 
and  Halleck  shows  his  fundamental  intention.  He  em- 
phatically abstains  from  forcing  them;  he  lucidly,  though 
not  so  tactfully  as  later,  urges  his  own  view  upon  the 
consideration  of  his  general,  begging  him,  not  necessa- 
rily to  act  upon  it,  but  at  least  to  see  the  point,  and  if  he 
will  not  do  what  is  wished,  to  form  and  explain  as  clearly 
a  plan  for  doing  something  better. 

2.   The  War  in  the  West  Up  to  May,  1862. 

The  pressure  upon  McClellan  to  move  grew  stronger 
and  indeed  more  justifiable  month  after  month,  and 
when  at  last,  in  March,  1862,  McClellan  did  move,  the 
story  of  the  severest  adversity  to  the  North,  of  Lincoln's 
sorest  trials,  and,  some  still  say,  his  gravest  failures,  be- 
gan. Its  details  will  concern  us  more  than  those  of  any 
other  part  of  the  war.  But  events  in  the  West  began 
earlier,  proceeded  faster,  and  should  be  told  first.  Buell 
could  not  obtain  from  McClellan  permission  to  carry 
out  his  own  scheme.  He  did,  however,  obtain  permis- 
sion for  Halleck,  if  he  consented,  to  send  flotillas  up  the 


28o  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Tennessee  and  Cumberland  Rivers  to  make  a  diversion 
while  Buell,  as  Lincoln  had  proposed  and  as  McClellan 
had  now  ordered,  marched  upon  Eastern  Tennessee. 
Halleck  would  not  move.  Buell  prepared  to  move  alone, 
and  in  January,  1862,  sent  forward  a  small  force  under 
Thomas  to  meet  an  equally  small  Confederate  force  that 
had  advanced  through  Cumberland  Gap  into  Eastern 
Kentucky.  Thomas  won  a  complete  victory,  most  wel- 
come as  the  first  success  since  the  defeat  of  Bull  Run,  at 
a  place  called  Mill  Springs,  far  up  the  Cumberland  River 
towards  the  mountains.  But  at  the  end  of  January,  while 
Buell  was  following  up  with  his  forces  rather  widely 
dispersed  because  he  expected  no  support  from  Halleck, 
he  was  brought  to  a  stop,  for  Halleck,  without  warning, 
did  make  an  important  movement  of  his  own,  in  which 
he  would  need  Buell's  support. 

The  Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee  are  navigable 
rivers  which  in  their  lower  course  flow  parallel  in  a  north- 
erly or  north-westerly  direction  to  join  the  Ohio  not  far 
above  its  junction  with  the  Mississippi  at  Cairo.  Fort 
Henry  was  a  Confederate  fort  guarding  the  navigation 
of  the  Tennessee  near  the  northern  boundary  of  the 
State  of  that  name,  Fort  Donelson  was  another  on  the 
Cumberland  not  far  off.  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant,  who 
had  served  with  real  distinction  in  the  Mexican  War,  had 
retired  from  the  Army  and  had  been  more  or  less  em- 
ployed about  his  father's  leather  store  in  Illinois  and 
in  the  gloomy  pursuit  of  intoxication  and  of  raising  small 
sums  from  reluctant  friends  when  he  met  them.  On  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  he  suddenly  pulled  himself 
together,  and  with  some  difficulty  got  employment  from 
the  Governor  of  Illinois  as  a  Major-General  in  the  State 
Militia  (obtaining  Army  rank  later).  Since  then,  while 
serving  under  Halleck,  he  had  shown  sense  and  prompti- 
tude in  seizing  an  important  point  on  the  Ohio,  upon 
which  the  Confederates  had  designs.  He  had  a  quick 
eye  for  seeing  important  points.  Grant  was  now  ordered 
or  obtained  permission  from  Halleck  to  capture  Fort 
Henry  and  Fort  Donelson.  By  the  sudden  movements 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  281 

of  Grant  and  of  the  flotilla  acting  with  him,  the  Confed- 
erates were  forced  to  abandon  Fort  Henry  on  February 
6,  1862.  Ten  days  later  Fort  Donelson  surrendered 
with  nearly  10,000  prisoners,  after  a  brilliant  and  nearly 
successful  sortie  by  the  garrison,  in  which  Grant  showed, 
further,  tenacity  and  a  collected  mind  under  the  pressure 
of  imminent  calamity.  Halleck  had  given  Grant  little 
help.  Buell  was  reluctant  to  detach  any  of  his  volun- 
teer troops  from  their  comrades  to  act  with  a  strange 
army,  and  Halleck  had  not  warned  him  of  his  intentions. 
Halleck  soon  applied  to  Lincoln  for  the  supreme  com- 
mand over  the  two  Western  armies  with  Buell  under 
him.  This  was  given  to  him.  Experience  showed  that 
one  or  the  other  must  command  now  that  concerted  ac- 
tion was  necessary.  Nothing  was  known  at  Washington 
to  set  against  Halleck's  own  claim  of  the  credit  for  the 
late  successes.  So  Lincoln  gave  him  the  command, 
though  present  knowledge  shows  clearly  that  Buell  was 
the  better  man.  Grant  had  been  left  before  Fort  Don- 
elson in  a  position  of  some  danger  from  the  army  under 
Albert  Johnston;  and,  from  needless  fear  of  Beauregard 
with  a  Confederate  force  under  him  yet  further  West, 
Halleck  let  slip  the  chance  of  sending  Grant  in  pursuit 
of  Johnston,  who  was  falling  back  up  the  Cumberland 
valley.  As  it  was,  Johnston  for  a  time  evacuated  Nash- 
ville, further  up  the  Cumberland,  the  chief  town  of  Ten- 
nessee and  a  great  railway  centre,  which  Buell  promptly 
occupied;  Beauregard  withdrew  the  Confederate  troops 
from  Columbus,  a  fortress  of  great  reputed  strength  on 
the  Mississippi  not  far  below  Cairo,  to  positions  forty 
or  fifty  miles  (as  the  crow  flies)  further  down  the  stream. 
Thus,  as  it  was,  some  important  steps  had  been  gained 
in  securing  that  control  of  the  navigation  of  the  river 
which  was  one  of  the  great  military  objects  of  the  North. 
Furthermore,  successful  work  was  being  done  still  further 
West  by  General  Curtis  in  Missouri,  who  drove  an  in- 
vading force  back  into  Arkansas  and  inflicted  a  crushing 
defeat  upon  them  there  in  March.  But  a  great  stroke 
should  now  have  been  struck.  Buell,  it  is  said,  saw 


282  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

plainly  that  his  forces  and  Halleck's  should  have  been 
concentrated  as  far  up  the  Tennessee  as  possible  in  an 
endeavour  to  seize  upon  the  main  railway  system  of  the 
Confederacy  in  the  West.  Halleck  preferred,  it  would 
seem,  to  concentrate  upon  nothing  and  to  scatter  his 
forces  upon  minor  enterprises,  provided  he  did  not  risk 
any  important  engagement.  An  important  engagement 
with  the  hope  of  destroying  an  army  of  the  enemy  was 
the  very  thing  which,  as  Johnston's  forces  now  stood,  he 
should  have  sought,  but  he  appears  to  have  been  con- 
tented by  the  temporary  retirement  of  an  unscathed 
enemy  who  would  return  again  reinforced.  Buell  was 
an  unlucky  man,  and  Halleck  got  quite  all  he  deserved, 
so  it  is  possible  that  events  have  been  described  to  us 
without  enough  regard  to  Halleck's  case  as  against  Buell. 
But  at  any  rate,  while  much  should  have  been  happening, 
nothing  very  definite  did  happen  till  April  6,  when  Albert 
Johnston,  now  strongly  reinforced  from  the  extreme 
South,  came  upon  Grant,  who  (it  is  not  clear  why)  had 
lain  encamped,  without  entrenching,  and  not  expecting 
immediate  attack,  near  Shiloh,  far  up  the  Tennessee 
River  in  the  extreme  south  of  Tennessee  State.  Buell  at 
the  time,  though  without  clear  information  as  to  Grant's 
danger,  was  on  his  way  to  join  him.  There  seems  to 
have  been  negligence  both  on  Halleck's  part  and  on 
Grant's.  The  battle  of  Shiloh  is  said  to  have  been  highly 
characteristic  of  the  combats  of  partly  disciplined  armies, 
in  which  the  individual  qualities,  good  or  bad,  of  the 
troops  play  a  conspicuous  part.  Direction  on  the  part 
of  Johnston  or  Grant  was  not  conspicuously  seen,  but 
the  latter,  whose  troops  were  surprised  and  driven  back 
some  distance,  was  intensely  determined.  In  the  course 
of  that  afternoon  Albert  Johnston  was  killed.  Rightly 
or  wrongly  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  other  friends  re- 
garded his  death  as  the  greatest  of  calamities  to  the 
South.  After  the  manner  of  many  battles,  more  espe- 
cially in  this  war,  the  battle  of  Shiloh  was  the  subject  of 
long  subsequent  dispute  between  friends  of  Grant  and 
of  Buell,  and  far  more  bitter  dispute  between  friends  of 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  283 

Albert  Johnston  and  Beauregard.  But  it  seems  that  the 
South  was  on  the  point  of  winning,  till  late  on  the  6th 
the  approach  of  the  first  reinforcements  from  Buell  made 
it  useless  to  attempt  more.  By  the  following  morning 
further  large  reinforcements  had  come  up;  Grant  in  his 
turn  attacked,  and  Beauregard  had  difficulty  in  turning 
a  precipitate  retirement  into  an  orderly  retreat  upon 
Corinth,  forty  miles  away,  a  junction  upon  the  principal 
railway  line  to  be  defended.  The  next  day  General  Pope, 
who  had  some  time  before  been  detached  by  Halleck 
for  this  purpose,  after  arduous  work  in  canal  cutting,  cap- 
tured, with  7,000  prisoners,  the  northernmost  forts  held 
by  the  Confederacy  on  the  Mississippi.  But  Halleck's 
plans  required  that  his  further  advance  should  be  stopped. 
Halleck  himself,  in  his  own  time,  arrived  at  the  front. 
In  his  own  time,  after  being  joined  by  Pope,  he  advanced, 
carefully  entrenching  himself  every  night.  He  covered 
in  something  over  a  month  the  forty  miles  route  to 
Corinth,  which,  to  his  surprise,  was  bloodlessly  evacuated 
before  him.  He  was  an  engineer,  and  like  some  other 
engineers  in  the  Civil  War,  was  overmuch  set  upon  a 
methodical  and  cautious  procedure.  But  his  mere  ad- 
vance to  Corinth  caused  the  Confederates  to  abandon 
yet  another  fort  on  the  Mississippi,  and  on  June  6  the 
Northern  troops  were  able  to  occupy  Memphis,  for 
which  Lincoln  had  long  wished,  while  the  flotilla  accom- 
panying them  destroyed  a  Confederate  flotilla.  Mean- 
while, on  May  I,  Admiral  Farragut,  daringly  running 
up  the  Mississippi,  had  captured  New  Orleans,  and  a 
Northern  force  under  Butler  was  able  to  establish  itself 
in  Louisiana.  The  North  had  now  gained  the  command 
of  most  of  the  Mississippi,  for  only  the  hundred  miles 
or  so  between  Vicksburg  far  south  and  Port  Hudson, 
between  that  and  New  Orleans,  was  still  held  by  the 
South;  and  command  by  Northern  gunboats  of  the  chief 
tributaries  of  the  great  river  was  also  established.  The 
Confederate  armies  in  the  West  were  left  intact,  though 
with  some  severe  losses,  and  would  be  able  before  long 
to  strike  northward  in  a  well-chosen  direction ;  for  all  that 


284  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

these  were  great  and  permanent  gains.  Yet  the  North 
was  not  cheered.  The  great  loss  of  life  at  Shiloh,  the 
greatest  battle  in  the  war  so  far,  created  a  horrible  im- 
pression. Halleck,  under  whom  all  this  progress  had 
been  made,  properly  enough  received  a  credit,  which 
critics  later  have  found  to  be  excessive,  though  it  is  plain 
that  he  had  reorganised  his  army  well;  but  Grant  was 
felt  to  have  been  caught  napping  at  Shiloh;  there  were 
other  rumours  about  him,  too,  and  he  fell  deep  into  gen- 
eral disfavour.  The  events  of  the  Western  war  did  not 
pause  for  long,  but,  till  the  end  of  this  year  1862,  the 
North  made  no  further  definite  progress,  and  the  South, 
though  it  was  able  to  invade  the  North,  achieved  no 
important  result.  It  will  be  well  then  here  to  take  up 
the  story  of  events  in  the  East  and  to  follow  them  con- 
tinuously till  May,  1863,  when  the  dazzling  fortune  of 
the  South  in  that  theatre  of  the  war  reached  its  highest 
point. 

3.   The  War  in  the  East  Up  to  May,  1863. 

The  interest  of  this  part  of  the  Civil  War  lies  chiefly 
in  the  achievements  of  Lee  and  "  Stonewall  "  Jackson. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  North,  it  was  not  only 
disastrous  but  forms  a  dreary  and  controversial  chapter. 
George  McClellan  came  to  Washington  amid  overwhelm- 
ing demonstrations  of  public  confidence.  His  compara- 
tive youth  added  to  the  interest  taken  in  him;  and  he 
was  spoken  of  as  "  the  young  Napoleon."  This  ridicu- 
lous name  for  a  man  already  thirty-four  was  a  sign  that 
the  people  expected  impossible  things  from  him.  Letters 
to  his  wife,  which  have  been  injudiciously  published,  show 
him  to  us  delighting  at  first  in  the  consideration  paid  to 
him  by  Lincoln  and  Scott,  proudly  confident  in  his  own 
powers,  rather  elated  than  otherwise  by  a  sense  that 
the  safety  of  the  country  rested  on  him  alone.  "  I  shall 
carry  the  thing  en  grande,  and  crush  the  rebels  in  one 
campaign."  He  soon  had  a  magnificent  army;  he  may 
be  said  to  have  made  it  himself.  Before,  as  he  thought, 
the  time  had  come  to  use  it,  he  had  fallen  from  favour, 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  285 

and  a  dead  set  was  being  made  against  him  in  Washing- 
ton. A  little  later,  at  the  crisis  of  his  great  venture, 
when,  as  he  claimed,  the  Confederate  capital  could  have 
been  taken,  his  expedition  was  recalled.  Then  at  a  mo- 
ment of  deadly  peril  to  the  country  his  services  were  again 
called  in.  He  warded  off  the  danger.  Yet  a  little  while 
and  his  services  were  discarded  for  ever.  This  sum- 
mary, which  is  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth,  must 
enlist  a  certain  sympathy  for  him.  The  chief  fact  of  his 
later  life  should  at  once  be  added.  In  1864,  when  a 
Presidential  election  was  approaching  and  despondency 
prevailed  widely  in  the  North,  he  was  selected  as  the 
champion  of  a  great  party.  The  Democrats  adopted  a 
"  platform  "  which  expressed  neither  more  nor  less  than 
a  desire  to  end  the  war  on  any  terms.  In  accordance 
with  the  invariable  tradition  of  party  opposition  in  war 
time,  they  chose  a  war  hero  as  their  candidate  for  the 
Presidency.  McClellan  publicly  repudiated  their  prin- 
ciples, and  no  doubt  he  meant  it,  but  he  became  their 
candidate — their  master  or  their  servant  as  it  might 
prove.  That  he  was  Lincoln's  opponent  in  the  election 
of  that  year  ensured  that  his  merits  and  his  misfortunes 
would  be  long  remembered,  but  his  action  then  may 
suggest  to  any  one  the  doubtful  point  in  his  career  all 
along. 

Some  estimate  of  his  curious  yet  by  no  means  uncom- 
mon type  of  character  is  necessary,  if  Lincoln's  relations 
with  him  are  to  be  understood  at  all.  The  devotion  to 
him  shown  by  his  troops  proves  that  he  had  great  titles 
to  confidence,  besides,  what  he  also  had,  a  certain  faculty 
of  parade,  with  his  handsome  charger,  his  imposing  staff 
and  the  rest.  He  was  a  great  trainer  of  soldiers,  and 
with  some  strange  lapses,  a  good  organiser.  He  was 
careful  for  the  welfare  of  his  men ;  and  his  almost  tender 
carefulness  of  their  lives  contrasted  afterwards  with  what 
appeared  the  ruthless  carelessness  of  Grant.  Unlike 
some  of  his  successors,  he  could  never  be  called  an  in- 
capable commander.  His  great  opponent,  Lee,  who  had 
known  him  of  old,  was  wont  to  calculate  on  his  extraor- 


286  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dinary  want  of  enterprise,  but  he  spoke  of  him  on  the 
whole  in  terms  of  ample  respect — also,  by  the  way,  he 
sympathised  with  him  like  a  soldier  when,  as  he  naturally 
assumed,  he  became  a  victim  to  scheming  politicians; 
and  Lee  confided  this  feeling  to  the  ready  ears  of  an- 
other great  soldier,  Wolseley.  As  he  showed  himself  in 
civil  life,  McClellan  was  an  attractive  gentleman  of 
genial  address;  it  was  voted  that  he  was  "magnetic," 
and  his  private  life  was  so  entirely  irreproachable  as  to 
afford  lively  satisfaction.  More  than  this,  it  may  be  con- 
jectured that  to  a  certain  standard  of  honour,  loyalty, 
and  patriotism,  which  he  set  consciously  before  himself, 
he  would  always  have  been  devotedly  true.  But  if  it  be 
asked  further  whether  McClellan  was  the  desired  in- 
strument for  Lincoln's  and  the  country's  needs,  and 
whether,  as  the  saying  is,  he  was  a  man  to  go  tiger-hunt- 
ing with,  something  very  much  against  him,  though  hard 
to  define,  appears  in  every  part  of  his  record  (except 
indeed,  one  performance  in  his  Peninsular  Campaign). 
Did  he  ever  do  his  best  to  beat  the  enemy?  Did  he  ever, 
except  for  a  moment,  concentrate  himself  singly  upon  any 
great  object?  Were  even  his  preparations  thorough? 
Was  his  information  ever  accurate  ?  Was  his  purpose  in 
the  war  ever  definite,  and,  if  so,  made  plain  to  his  Gov- 
ernment? Was  he  often  betrayed  into  marked  frank- 
ness, or  into  marked  generosity?  No  one  would  be  ready 
to  answer  yes  to  any  of  these  questions.  McClellan  fills 
so  memorable  a  place  in  American  history  that  he  de- 
mands such  a  label  as  can  be  given  to  him.  In  the 
most  moving  and  the  most  authentic  of  all  Visions  of 
Judgment,  men  were  not  set  on  the  right  hand  or  the  left 
according  as  they  were  of  irreproachable  or  reproach- 
able  character;  they  were  divided  into  those  who  did 
and  those  who  did  not.  In  the  provisional  judgment 
which  men,  if  they  make  it  modestly,  should  at  times 
make  with  decision,  McClellan's  place  is  clear.  The 
quality,  "  spiacente  a  Dio  ed  ai  nemici  suoi,"  of  the  men 
who  did  not,  ran  through  and  through  him. 

Lincoln  required  first  a  general  who  would  make  no 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  287 

fatal  blunder,  but  he  required  too,  when  he  could  find 
him,  a  general  of  undaunted  enterprise;  he  did  not  wish 
to  expose  the  North  to  disaster,  but  he  did  mean  to  con- 
quer the  South.  There  was  some  security  in  employing 
McClellan,  though  employing  him  did  at  one  time  throw 
on  Lincoln's  unfit  shoulders  the  task  of  defending  Wash- 
ington. It  proved  very  hard  to  find  another  general 
equally  trustworthy.  But,  in  the  light  of  facts  which 
Lincoln  came  to  perceive,  it  proved  impossible  to  con- 
sider McClellan  as  the  man  to  finish  the  war. 

We  need  only  notice  the  doings  of  the  main  armies  in 
this  theatre  of  the  war  and  take  no  account  of  various 
minor  affairs  at  outlying  posts.  From  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  which  was  on  July  21,  1861,  to  March  5,  1862, 
the  Southern  army  under  Joseph  Johnston  lay  quietly 
drilling  at  Manassas.  It,  of  course,  entrenched  its  posi- 
tion, but  to  add  to  the  appearance  of  its  strength,  it  con- 
structed embrasures  for  more  than  its  number  of  guns 
and  had  dummy  guns  to  show  in  them.  At  one  moment 
there  was  a  prospect  that  it  might  move.  Johnston  and 
the  general  with  him  had  no  idea  of  attacking  the  army 
of  the  Potomac  where  it  lay,  but  they  did  think  that  with 
a  further  50,000  or  60,000  they  might  successfully  in- 
vade Maryland,  crossing  higher  up  the  Potomac,  and  by 
drawing  McClellan  away  from  his  present  position,  get 
a  chance  of  defeating  him.  The  Southern  President 
came  to  Manassas,  at  their  invitation,  on  October  I,  but 
he  did  not  think  well  to  withdraw  the  trained  men  whom 
he  could  have  sent  to  Johnston  from  the  various  points 
in  the  South  at  which  they  were  stationed;  he  may  have 
had  good  reasons  but  it  is  likely  that  he  sacrificed  one 
of  the  best  chances  of  the  South.  McClellan's  army  was 
soon  in  as  good  a  state  of  preparation  as  Johnston's. 
Early  in  October  McClellan  had,  on  his  own  statement, 
over  147,000  men  at  his  disposal;  Joseph  Johnston,  on 
his  own  statement,  under  47,000.  Johnston  was  well 
informed  as  to  McClellan's  numbers — very  likely  he 
could  get  information  from  Maryland  more  easily  than 
McClellan  from  Virginia.  The  two  armies  lay  not 


288  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

twenty-five  miles  apart.  The  weather  and  the  roads 
were  good  to  the  end  of  December;  the  roads  were  pracx 
ticable  by  March  and  they  seem  to  have  been  so  all  the 
time.  As  spring  approached,  it  appeared  to  the  Southern 
generals  that  McClellan  must  soon  advance.  Johnston 
thought  that  his  right  flank  was  liable  to  be  turned  and 
the  railway  communications  south  of  Manassas  liable  to 
be  cut.  In  the  course  of  February  it  was  realised  that 
his  position  was  too  dangerous;  the  large  stores  accu- 
mulated there  were  removed;  and  when,  early  in  March, 
there  were  reports  of  unusual  activity  in  the  Northern 
camp,  Johnston,  still  expecting  attack  from  the  same 
direction,  began  his  retreat.  On  March  9  it  was  learned 
in  Washington  that  Manassas  had  been  completely  evac- 
uated. McClellan  marched  his  whole  army  there,  and 
marched  it  back.  Johnston  withdrew  quietly  behind  the 
Rapidan  River,  some  30  miles  further  south,  and  to  his 
surprise  was  left  free  from  any  pursuit. 

For  months  past  the  incessant  report  in  the  papers, 
"  all  quiet  upon  the  Potomac,"  had  been  getting  upon 
the  nerves  of  the  North.  The  gradual  conversion  of 
their  pride  in  an  imposing  army  into  puzzled  rage  at  its 
inactivity  has  left  a  deeper  impression  on  Northern  mem- 
ories than  the  shock  of  disappointment  at  Bull  Run. 
Public  men  of  weight  had  been  pressing  for  an  advance 
in  November,  and  when  the  Joint  Committee  of  Con- 
gress, an  arbitrary  and  meddlesome,  but  able  and  perhaps 
on  the  whole  useful  body,  was  set  up  in  December,  it 
brought  its  full  influence  to  bear  on  the  President.  Lin- 
coln was  already  anxious  enough;  he  wished  to  rouse 
McClellan  himself  to  activity,  while  he  screened  him 
against  excessive  impatience  or  interference  with  his 
plans.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  was  McClellan's  real 
mind.  Quite  early  he  seems  to  have  held  out  hopes  to 
Lincoln  that  he  would  soon  attack,  but  he  was  writing  to 
his  wife  that  he  expected  to  be  attacked  by  superior  num- 
bers. It  is  certain,  however,  that  he  was  possessed  now 
and  always  by  a  delusion  as  to  the  enemy's  strength. 
For  instance :  Lincoln  at  last  felt  bound  to  work  out  for 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  289 

himself  definite  prospects  for  a  forward  movement;  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  of  this  layman's  effort  that  he  proposed 
substantially  the  line  of  advance  which  Johnston  a  little 
later  began  to  dread  most;  Lincoln's  plan  was  submitted 
for  McClellan's  consideration;  McClellan  rejected  it, 
and  his  reasons  were  based  on  his  assertion  that  he  would 
have  to  meet  nearly  equal  numbers.  He,  in  fact,  out- 
numbered the  enemy  by  more  than  three  to  one.  If  we 
find  the  President  later  setting  aside  the  general's  judg- 
ment on  grounds  that  are  not  fully  explained,  we  must 
recall  McClellan's  vast  and  persistent  miscalculations  of 
ran  enemy  resident  in  his  neighbourhood.  And  the  dis- 
trust which  he  thus  created  was  aggravated  by  another 
propensity  of  his  vague  mind.  His  illusory  fear  was  the 
companion  of  an  extravagant  hope;  the  Confederate 
army  was  invincible  when  all  the  world  expected  him  to 
attack  it  then  and  there,  but  the  blow  which  he  would 
deal  it  in  his  own  place  and  his  own  time  was  to  have 
decisive  results,  which  were  indeed  impossible ;  the  enemy 
was  to  "  pass  beneath  the  Caudine  Forks."  The  de- 
mands which  he  made  on  the  Administration  for  men  and 
supplies  seemed  to  have  no  finality  about  them;  his  tone 
in  regard  to  them  seemed  to  degenerate  into  a  chronic 
grumble.  The  War  Department  certainly  did  not  in- 
tend to  stint  him  in  any  way;  but  he  was  an  unsatisfac- 
tory man  to  deal  with  in  these  matters.  There  was  a 
great  mystery  as  to  what  became  of  the  men  sent  to  him. 
In  the  idyllic  phrase,  which  Lincoln  once  used  of  him 
or  of  some  other  general,  sending  troops  to  him  was 
"  like  shifting  fleas  across  a  barn  floor  with  a  shovel — 
not  half  of  them  ever  get  there."  But  his  fault  was 
graver  than  this;  utterly  ignoring  the  needs  of  the  West, 
he  tried,  as  General-in-Chief,  to  divert  to  his  own  army 
the  recruits  and  the  stores  required  for  the  other  armies. 
The  difficulty  with  him  went  yet  further;  McClellan 
himself  deliberately  set  to  work  to  destroy  personal  har- 
mony between  himself  and  his  Government.  It  counts 
for  little  that  in  private  he  soon  set  down  all  the  civil 
authorities  as  the  "  greatest  set  of  incapables,"  and  so 


290  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

forth,  but  it  counts  for  more  that  he  was  personally  inso- 
lent to  the  President.  Lincoln  had  been  in  the  habit, 
mistaken  in  this  case  but  natural  in  a  chief  who  desires 
to  be  friendly,  of  calling  at  McClellan's  house  rather  than 
summoning  him  to  his  own.  McClellan  acquired  a  habit 
of  avoiding  him,  he  treated  his  enquiries  as  idle  curiosity, 
and  he  probably  thought,  not  without  a  grain  of  reason, 
that  Lincoln's  way  of  discussing  matters  with  many  peo- 
ple led  him  into  indiscretion.  So  one  evening  when  Lin- 
coln and  Seward  were  waiting  at  the  general's  house  for 
his  return,  McClellan  came  in  and  went  upstairs ;  a  mes- 
sage was  sent  that  the  President  would  be  glad  to  see 
him;  he  said  he  was  tired  and  would  rather  be  excused 
that  night.  Lincoln  damped  down  his  friends'  indigna- 
tion at  this;  he  would,  he  once  said,  "hold  General  Mc- 
Clellan's stirrup  for  him  if  he  will  only  win  us  victories." 
But  he  called  no  more  at  McClellan's,  and  a  curious 
abruptness  in  some  of  his  orders  later  marks  his  unsuc- 
cessful effort  to  deal  with  McClellan  in  another  way. 
The  slightly  ridiculous  light  in  which  the  story  shows 
Lincoln  would  not  obscure  to  any  soldier  the  full  gravity 
of  such  an  incident.  It  was  not  merely  foolish  to  treat 
a  kind  superior  rudely;  a  general  who  thus  drew  down  a 
curtain  between  his  own  mind  and  that  of  the  Govern- 
ment evidently  went  a  very  long  way  to  ensure  failure 
in  war. 

Lincoln  had  failed  to  move  McClellan  early  in  Decem- 
ber. For  part  of  that  month  and  January  McClellan 
was  very  ill.  Consultations  were  held  with  other  gen- 
erals, including  McDowell,  who  could  not  be  given  the 
chief  command  because  the  troops  did  not  trust  him. 
McDowell  and  the  rest  were  in  agreement  with  Lincoln. 
Then  McClellan  suddenly  recovered  and  was  present  at 
a  renewed  consultation.  He  snubbed  McDowell;  the 
inadequacy  of  his  force  to  meet,  in  fact,  less  than  a  third 
of  its  number  was  "  so  plain  that  a  blind  man  could  see 
it " ;  he  was  severely  and  abruptly  tackled  as  to  his  own 
plans  by  Secretary  Chase;  Lincoln  intervened  to  shield 
him,  got  from  him  a  distinct  statement  that  he  had  in 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  291 

his  mind  a  definite  time  for  moving,  and  adjourned  the 
meeting.  Stanton,  one  of  the  friends  to  whom  McClellan 
had  confided  his  grievances,  was  now  at  the  War  De- 
partment and  was  at  one  with  the  Joint  Committee  of 
Congress  in  his  impatience  that  McClellan  should  move. 
At  last,  on  January  27,  Lincoln  published  a  "  General 
War  Order  "  that  a  forward  movement  was  to  be  made 
by  the  army  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Western  armies  on 
February  22.  It  seems  a  blundering  step,  but  it  roused 
McClellan.  For  a  time  he  even  thought  of  acting  as 
Lincoln  wished;  he  would  move  straight  against  John- 
ston, and  "  in  ten  days,"  he  told  Chase  on  February  13, 
"  I  shall  be  in  Richmond."  But  he  quickly  returned  to 
the  plan  which  he  seems  to  have  been  forming  before  but 
which  he  only  now  revealed  to  the  Government,  and  it 
was  a  plan  which  involved  further  delay.  When  Feb- 
ruary 22  passed  and  nothing  was  done,  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee were  indignant  that  Lincoln  still  stood  by  Mc- 
Clellan. But  McClellan  now  was  proposing  definite  ac- 
tion; apart  from  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  better  man, 
there  was  the  fact  that  McClellan  had  made  his  army 
and  was  beloved  by  it;  above  all,  Lincoln  had  not  lost  all 
the  belief  he  had  formed  at  first  in  McClellan's  capacity; 
he  believed  that  "  if  he  could  once  get  McClellan  started  " 
he  would  do  well.  Professional  criticism,  alive  to  Mc- 
Clellan's military  faults,  has  justified  Lincoln  in  this,  and 
it  was  for  something  other  than  professional  failure  that 
Lincoln  at  last  removed  him. 

McClellan  had  determined  to  move  his  army  by  sea 
to  some  point  further  down  the  coast  of  the  Chesapeake 
Bay.  The  questions  which  Lincoln  wrote  to  him  request- 
ing a  written  answer  have  never  been  adequately  an- 
swered. Did  McClellan's  plan,  he  asked,  require  less 
time  or  money  than  Lincoln's?  Did  it  make  victory 
more  certain?  Did  it  make  it  more  valuable?  In  case 
of  disaster,  did  it  make  retreat  more  easy?  The  one 
point  for  consideration  in  McClellan's  reply  to  him  is 
that  the  enemy  did  not  expect  such  a  movement.  This 
was  quite  true;  but  the  enemy  was  able  to  meet  it,  and 


292  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

McClellan  was  far  too  deliberate  to  reap  any  advantage 
from  a  surprise.  His  original  plan  was  to  land  near  a 
place  called  Urbana  on  the  estuary  of  the  Rappahannock, 
not  fifty  miles  east  of  Richmond.  When  he  heard  that 
Johnston  had  retreated  further  south,  he  assumed,  and 
ever  after  declared,  that  this  was  to  anticipate  his  de- 
sign upon  Urbana,  which,  he  said,  must  have  reached 
the  enemy's  ears  through  the  loose  chattering  of  the 
Administration.  As  has  been  seen,  this  was  quite  un- 
true. His  project  of  going  to  Urbana  was  now  changed, 
by  himself  or  the  Government,  upon  the  unanimous  ad- 
vice of  his  chief  subordinate  generals,  into  a  movement 
to  Fort  Monroe,  which  he  had  even  before  regarded  as 
preferable  to  a  direct  advance  southwards.  A  few  days 
after  Johnston's  retreat,  the  War  Department  began  the 
embarkation  of  his  troops  for  this  point.  Fort  Monroe 
is  at  the  end  of  the  peninsula  which  lies  between  the 
estuaries  of  the  York  River  on  the  north  and  the  James 
on  the  south.  Near  the  base  of  this  projection  of  land, 
seventy-five  miles  from  Fort  Monroe,  stands  Richmond. 
On  April  2,  1862,  McClellan  himself  landed  to  begin 
the  celebrated  Peninsula  Campaign  which  was  to  close  in 
disappointment  at  the  end  of  July. 

Before  the  troops  were  sent  to  the  Peninsula  several 
things  were  to  be  done.  An  expedition  to  restore  com- 
munication westward  by  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail- 
way involved  bridging  the  Potomac  with  boats  which 
were  to  be  brought  by  canal.  It  collapsed  because  Mc- 
Clellan's  boats  were  six  inches  too  wide  for  the  canal 
locks.  Then  Lincoln  had  insisted  that  the  navigation  of 
the  lower  Potomac  should  be  made  free  from  the  menace 
of  Confederate  batteries  which,  if  McClellan  would  have 
co-operated  with  the  Navy  Department,  would  have 
been  cleared  away  long  before.  This  was  now  done,  and 
though  a  new  peril  to  the  transportation  of  McClellan's 
army  suddenly  and  dramatically  disclosed  itself,  it  was 
as  suddenly  and  dramatically  removed.  In  the  hasty 
abandonment  of  Norfolk  harbour  on  the  south  of  the 
James  estuary  by  the  North,  a  screw  steamer  called  the 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  293 

Merrimac  had  been  partly  burnt  and  scuttled  by  the 
North.  On  March  i  she  steamed  out  of  the  harbour  in 
sight  of  the  North.  The  Confederates  had  raised  her 
and  converted  her  into  an  ironclad.  Three  wooden  ships 
of  the  North  gave  gallant  but  useless  fight  to  her  and 
were  destroyed  that  day;  and  the  news  spread  con- 
sternation in  every  Northern  port.  On  the  very  next 
morning  there  came  into  the  mouth  of  the  James  the 
rival  product  of  the  Northern  Navy  Department  and  of 
the  Swedish  engineer  Ericsson's  invention.  She  was  com- 
pared to  a  "  cheesebox  on  a  raft " ;  she  was  named  the 
Monitor,  and  was  the  parent  of  a  type  of  vessel  so  called 
which  has  been  heard  of  much  more  recently.  The 
Merrimac  and  the  Monitor  forthwith  fought  a  three 
hours'  duel;  then  each  retired  into  harbour  without  fatal 
damage.  But  the  Merrimac  never  came  out  again;  she 
was  destroyed  by  the  Confederates  when  McClellan  had 
advanced  some  way  up  the  Peninsula;  and  it  will  be 
unnecessary  to  speak  of  the  several  similar  efforts  of  the 
South,  which  nearly  but  not  quite  achieved  very  important 
successes  later. 

Before  and  after  his  arrival  at  the  Peninsula,  Mc- 
Clellan received  several  mortifications.  Immediately 
after  the  humiliation  of  the  enemy's  escape  from 
Manassas,  he  was  without  warning  relieved  of  his  com- 
mand as  General-in-Chief.  This  would  in  any  case  have 
followed  naturally  upon  his  expedition  away  from  Wash- 
ington; it  was  in  public  put  on  that  ground  alone;  and 
he  took  it  well.  He  had  been  urged  to  appoint  corps 
commanders,  for  so  large  a  force  as  his  could  not  re- 
main organised  only  in  divisions;  he  preferred  to  wait 
till  he  had  made  trial  of  the  generals  under  him;  Lin- 
coln would  not  have  this  delay,  and  appointed  corps  com- 
manders chosen  by  himself  because  he  believed  them  to 
be  fighting  men.  The  manner  in  which  these  and  some 
other  preparatory  steps  were  taken  were,  without  a 
doubt,  intended  to  make  McClellan  feel  the  whip.  They 
mark  a  departure,  not  quite  happy  at  first,  from  Lincoln's 
formerly  too  gentle  manner.  A  worse  shock  to  Me- 


294  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Clellan  followed.  The  President  had  been  emphatic  in 
his  orders  that  a  sufficient  force  should  be  left  to  make 
Washington  safe,  and  supposed  that  he  had  come  to  a 
precise  understanding  on  this  point.  He  suddenly  dis- 
covered that  McClellan,  who  had  now  left  for  Fort 
Monroe,  had  ordered  McDowell  to  follow  him  with  a 
force  so  large  that  it  would  not  leave  the  required  num* 
ber  behind.  Lincoln  immediately  ordered  McDowell 
and  his  whole  corps  to  remain,  though  he  subsequently 
sent  a  part  of  it  to  McClellan.  McClellan's  story  later 
gives  reason  for  thinking  that  he  had  intended  no  decep- 
tion; but  if  so,  he  had  expressed  himself  with  unpar- 
donable vagueness,  and  he  had  not  in  fact  left  Wash- 
ington secure.  Now  and  throughout  this  campaign 
Lincoln  took  the  line  that  Washington  must  be  kept  safe 
— safe  in  the  judgment  of  all  the  best  military  authorities 
available. 

McClellan's  progress  up  the  Peninsula  was  slow.  He 
had  not  informed  himself  correctly  as  to  the  geography; 
he  found  the  enemy  not  so  unprepared  as  he  had  sup- 
posed; he  wasted,  it  is  agreed,  a  month  in  regular  ap- 
proaches to  their  thinly-manned  fortifications  at  York- 
town,  when  he  might  have  carried  them  by  assault.  He 
was  soon  confronted  by  Joseph  Johnston,  and  he  seems 
both  to  have  exaggerated  Johnston's  numbers  again  and 
to  have  been  unprepared  for  his  movements.  The  Ad- 
ministration does  not  seem  to  have  spared  any  effort  to 
support  him.  In  addition  to  the  100,000  troops  he  took 
with  him,  40,000  altogether  were  before  long  despatched 
to  him.  He  was  operating  in  a  very  difficult  country, 
but  he  was  opposed  at  first  by  not  half  his  own  number. 
Lincoln,  in  friendly  letters,  urged  upon  him  that  delay 
enabled  the  enemy  to  strengthen  himself  both  in  numbers 
and  in  fortifications.  The  War  Department  did  its  best 
for  him.  The  whole  of  his  incessant  complaints  on  this 
score  are  rendered  unconvincing  by  the  language  of  his 
private  letters  about  that  "  sink  of  iniquity,  Washing- 
ton," "  those  treacherous  hounds,"  the  civil  authorities, 
who  were  at  least  honest  and  intelligent  men,  and  the 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  295 

"Abolitionists  and  other  scoundrels,"  who,  he  supposed, 
wished  the  destruction  of  his  army.  The  criticism  in 
Congress  of  himself  and  his  generals  was  no  doubt  free, 
but  so,  as  Lincoln  reminded  him,  was  the  criticism  of 
Lincoln  himself.  Justly  or  not,  there  were  complaints 
of  his  relations  with  corps  commanders.  Lincoln  gave 
no  weight  to  them,  but  wrote  him  a  manly  and  a  kindly 
warning.  The  points  of  controversy  which  McClellan 
bequeathed  to  writers  on  the  Civil  War  are  innumerable, 
but  no  one  can  read  his  correspondence  at  this  stage  with- 
out concluding  that  he  was  almost  impossible  to  deal  with, 
and  that  the  whole  of  his  evidence  in  his  own  case  was 
vitiated  by  a  sheer  hallucination  that  people  wished  him 
to  fail.  He  had  been  nearly  two  months  in  the  Peninsula 
when  he  was  attacked  at  a  disadvantage  by  Johnston, 
but  defeated  him  on  May  31  and  June  i  in  a  battle  which 
gave  confidence  and  prestige  to  the  Northern  side,  but 
which  he  did  not  follow  up.  A  part  of  his  army  pursued 
the  enemy  to  within  four  miles  of  Richmond,  and  it  has 
been  contended  that  if  he  had  acted  with  energy  he  could 
at  this  time  have  taken  that  city.  His  delay,  to  what- 
ever it  was  due,  gave  the  enemy  time  to  strengthen  him- 
self greatly  both  in  men  and  in  fortifications.  The 
capable  Johnston  was  severely  wounded  in  the  battle, 
and  was  replaced  by  the  inspired  Lee.  According  to 
McClellan's  own  account,  which  English  writers  have 
followed,  his  movements  had  been  greatly  embarrassed 
by  the  false  hope  given  him  that  McDowell  was  now  to 
march  overland  and  join  him.  His  statement  that  he 
was  influenced  by  this  is  refuted  by  his  own  letters  at  the 
time.  McClellan,  however,  suffered  a  great  disappoint- 
ment. The  front  of  Washington  was  now  clear  of  the 
enemy  and  Lincoln  had  determined  to  send  McDowell 
when  he  was  induced  to  keep  him  back  by  a  diversion  in 
the  war  which  he  had  not  expected,  and  which  indeed 
McClellan  had  advised  him  not  to  expect. 

"  Stonewall  "  Jackson's  most  famous  campaign  hap- 
pened at  this  juncture,  and  to  save  Washington,  Lincoln 
and  Stanton  placed  themselves,  or  were  placed,  in  the 


296  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

trying  position  of  actually  directing  movements  of  troops. 
There  were  to  the  south  and  south-west  of  Washington, 
besides  the  troops  under  McDowell's  command,  two 
Northern  forces  respectively  commanded  by  Generals 
Banks  and  Fremont.  These  two  men  were  among  the 
chief  examples  of  those  "  political  generals,"  the  use  of 
whom  in  this  early  and  necessarily  blundering  stage  of 
the  war  has  been  the  subject  of  much  comment.  Banks 
was  certainly  a  politician,  a  self-made  man,  who  had 
worked  in  a  factory  and  who  had  risen  to  be  at  one  time 
Speaker  of  the  House.  He  was  now  a  general  because 
as  a  powerful  man  in  the  patriotic  State  of  Massachu- 
setts he  brought  with  him  many  men,  and  these  were 
ready  to  obey  him.  On  the  other  hand,  he  on  several 
occasions  showed  good  judgment  both  in  military  matters 
and  in  the  questions  of  civil  administration  which  came 
under  him;  his  heart  was  in  his  duty;  and,  though  he  held 
high  commands  almost  to  the  end  of  the  war,  want  of 
competence  was  never  imputed  to  him  till  the  failure  of 
a  very  difficult  enterprise  on  which  he  was  despatched  in 
1864.  He  was  now  in  the  lower  valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah,  keeping  a  watch  over  a  much  smaller  force  under 
Jackson  higher  up  the  valley.  Fremont  was  in  some 
sense  a  soldier,  but  after  his  record  in  Missouri  he  should 
never  have  been  employed.  His  new  appointment  was 
one  of  Lincoln's  greatest  mistakes,  and  it  was  a  mistake 
of  a  characteristic  kind.  It  will  easily  be  understood 
that  there  were  real  political  reasons  for  not  leaving  this 
popular  champion  of  freedom  unused  and  unrecognized. 
These  reasons  should  not  have,  and  probably  would  not 
have,  prevailed.  But  Lincoln's  personal  reluctance  to 
resist  all  entreaties  on  behalf  of  his  own  forerunner  and 
his  own  rival  was  great;  and  then  Fremont  came  to 
Lincoln  and  proposed  to  him  a  knight-errant's  adventure 
to  succour  the  oppressed  Unionists  of  Tennessee  by  an 
expedition  through  West  Virginia.  So  he  was  now  to 
proceed  there,  but  was  kept  for  the  present  in  the  moun- 
tains near  the  Shenandoah  valley.  The  way  in  which 
the  forces  under  McDowell,  Banks  and  Fremont  were 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  297 

scattered  on  various  errands  was  unscientific;  what  could 
be  done  by  Jackson,  in  correspondence  with  Lee,  was 
certainly  unforeseen.  At  the  beginning  of  May,  Jackson, 
who  earlier  in  the  spring  had  achieved  some  minor  suc- 
cesses in  the  Shenandoah  valley  and  had  raided  West 
Virginia,  began  a  series  of  movements  of  which  the 
brilliant  skill  and  daring  are  recorded  in  Colonel  Hen- 
derson's famous  book.  With  a  small  force,  surrounded 
by  other  forces,  each  of  which,  if  concentrated,  should 
have  outnumbered  him,  he  caught  each  in  turn  at  a  dis- 
advantage, inflicted  on  them  several  damaging  blows, 
and  put  the  startled  President  and  Secretary  of  War  in 
fear  for  the  safety  of  Washington.  There  seemed  to  be 
no  one  available  who  could  immediately  be  charged  with 
the  supreme  command  of  these  three  Northern  forces, 
unless  McDowell  could  have  been  spared  from  where  he 
was;  so  Lincoln  with  Stanton's  help  took  upon  himself 
to  ensure  the  co-operation  of  their  three  commanders  by 
orders  from  Washington.  His  self-reliance  had  now 
begun  to  reach  its  full  stature,  his  military  good  sense 
in  comparison  with  McClellan's  was  proving  greater  than 
he  had  supposed,  and  he  had  probably  not  discovered  its 
limitations.  Presumably  his  plans  now  were,  like  an  ama- 
teur's, too  complicated,  and  it  is  not  worth  while  to  dis- 
cuss them.  But  he  was  trying  to  cope  with  newly  re- 
vealed military  genius,  and,  so  far  as  can  be  told,  he 
was  only  prevented  from  crushing  the  adventurous 
Jackson  by  a  piece  of  flat  disobedience  on  the  part  of 
Fremont.  Fremont,  having  thus  appropriately  punished 
Lincoln,  was  removed,  this  time  finally,  from  command. 
Jackson,  having  successfully  kept  McDowell  from  Mc- 
Clellan,  had  before  the  end  of  June  escaped  safe  south- 
ward. McClellan  was  nearing  Richmond.  Lee,  by  this 
time,  had  been  set  free  from  Jefferson  Davis'  office  and 
had  taken  over  the  command  of  Joseph  Johnston's 
army.  Lincoln  must  have  learnt  a  great  deal,  and  he 
fully  realised  that  the  forces  not  under  McClellan  in  the 
East  should  be  under  some  single  commander.  Pope, 
an  experienced  soldier,  had  succeeded  well  in  the  West; 


298  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  was  no  longer  necessary  there,  and  there  was  no  ad- 
verse criticism  upon  him.  He  was  in  all  respects  a 
proper  choice,  and  he  was  now  summoned  to  take  com- 
mand of  what  was  to  be  called  the  army  of  Virginia.  A 
few  days  later,  upon  the  advice,  as  it  seems,  of  Scott, 
Halleck  himself  was  called  from  the  West.  His  old 
command  was  left  to  Grant  and  he  himself  was  made 
General-in-Chief  and  continued  at  Washington  to  the 
end  of  the  war  as  an  adviser  of  the  Government.  All 
the  progress  in  the  West  had  been  made  under  Halleck's 
supervision,  and  his  despatches  had  given  an  exaggerated 
impression  of  his  own  achievement  at  Corinth.  He  had 
not  seen  active  service  before  the  war,  but  he  had  a  great 
name  as  an  accomplished  military  writer;  in  after  years 
he  was  well  known  as  a  writer  on  international  law.  He 
is  not  thought  to  have  justified  his  appointment  by  show- 
ing sound  judgment  about  war,  and  Lincoln  upon  some 
later  emergency  told  him  in  his  direct  way  that  his  mili- 
tary knowledge  was  useless  if  he  could  not  give  a  definite 
decision  in  doubtful  circumstances.  But  whether .  Hal- 
leck's abilities  were  great  or  small,  Lincoln  continued  to 
use  them,  because  he  found  him  "  wholly  for  the  service," 
without  personal  favour  or  prejudice. 

McClellan  was  slowly  but  steadily  nearing  Richmond. 
From  June  26  to  July  2  there  took  place  a  series  of  en- 
gagements between  Lee  and  McClellan,  or  rather  the 
commanders  under  him,  known  as  the  Seven  Days'  Bat- 
tles. The  fortunes  of  the  fighting  varied  greatly,  but 
the  upshot  is  that,  though  the  corps  on  McClellan's  left 
won  a  strong  position  not  far  from  Richmond,  the  sud- 
den approach  of  Jackson's  forces  upon  McClellan's  right 
flank,  which  began  on  the  26th,  placed  him  in  what  ap- 
pears to  have  been,  as  he  himself  thought  it,  a  situation 
of  great  danger.  Lee  is  said  to  have  "  read  McClellan 
like  an  open  book,"  playing  upon  his  caution,  which  made 
him,  while  his  subordinates  fought,  more  anxious  to 
secure  their  retreat  than  to  seize  upon  any  advantage 
they  gained.  But  Lee's  reading  deceived  him  in  one 
respect.  He  had  counted  upon  McClellan's  retreating, 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  299 

but  thought  he  would  retreat  under  difficulties  right  down 
the  Peninsula  to  his  original  base  and  be  thoroughly  cut 
up  on  the  way.  But  on  July  2  McClellan  with  great  skill 
withdrew  his  whole  army  to  Harrison's  Landing  far  up 
the  James  estuary,  having  effected  with  the  Navy  a 
complete  transference  of  his  base.  Here  his  army  lay 
in  a  position  of  security;  they  might  yet  threaten  Rich- 
mond, and  McClellan's  soldiers  still  believed  in  him. 
But  the  South  was  led  by  a  great  commander  and  had 
now  learned  to  give  him  unbounded  confidence;  there 
was  some  excuse  for  a  panic  in  Wall  Street,  and  every 
reason  for  dejection  in  the  North. 

On  the  third  of  the  Seven  Days,  McClellan,  much 
moved  by  the  sight  of  dead  and  wounded  comrades,  sent 
a  gloomy  telegram  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  appealing 
with  excessive  eloquence  for  more  men.  "  I  only  wish 
to  say  to  the  President,"  he  remarked  in  it,  "  that  I 
think  he  is  wrong  in  regarding  me  as  ungenerous  when  I 
said  that  my  force  was  too  weak."  He  concluded:  "  If 
I  save  the  army  now,  I  tell  you  plainly  that  I  owe  no 
thanks  to  you  nor  to  any  other  persons  in  Washington. 
You  have  done  your  best  to  sacrifice  this  army."  Stanton 
still  expressed  the  extraordinary  hope  that  Richmond 
would  fall  in  a  day  or  two.  He  had  lately  committed 
the  folly  of  suspending  enlistment,  an  act  which,  though 
of  course  there  is  an  explanation  of  it,  must  rank  as  the 
one  first-rate  blunder  of  Lincoln's  Administration.  He 
was  now  negotiating  through  the  astute  Seward  for  offers 
from  the  State  Governors  of  a  levy  of  300,000  men  to 
follow  up  McClellan's  success.  Lincoln,  as  was  his  way, 
feared  the  worst.  He  seems  at  one  moment  to  have  had 
fears  for  McClellan's  sanity.  But  he  telegraphed,  him- 
self, an  answer  to  him,  which  affords  as  fair  an  exam- 
ple as  can  be  given  of  his  characteristic  manner.  "Save 
your  army  at  all  events.  Will  send  reinforcements  as 
fast  as  we  can.  Of  course  they  cannot  reach  you  to-day 
or  to-morrow,  or  next  day.  I  have  not  said  you  were 
ungenerous  for  saying  you  needed  reinforcements.  I 
thought  you  were  ungenerous  in  assuming  that  I  did  not 


300  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

send  them  as  fast  as  I  could.  I  feel  any  misfortune  to 
you  and  your  army  quite  as  keenly  as  you  feel  it  yourself. 
If  you  have  had  a  drawn  battle  or  repulse,  it  is  the  price 
we  pay  for  the  enemy  not  being  in  Washington.  We 
protected  Washington  and  the  enemy  concentrated  on 
you.  Had  we  stripped  Washington,  he  would  have  been 
upon  us  before  the  troops  could  have  gotten  to  you.  Less 
than  a  week  ago  you  notified  us  reinforcements  were 
leaving  Richmond  to  come  in  front  of  us.  It  is  the 
nature  of  the  case,  and  neither  you  nor  the  Government 
are  to  blame.  Please  tell  me  at  once  the  present  condi- 
tion and  aspect  of  things." 

Demands  for  an  impossible  number  of  reinforcements 
continued.  Lincoln  explained  to  McClellan  a  few  days 
later  that  they  were  impossible,  and  added :  "  If  in  your 
frequent  mention  of  responsibility  you  have  the  impres- 
sion that  I  blame  you  for  not  doing  more  than  you  can, 
please  be  relieved  of  such  an  impression.  I  only  beg  that, 
in  like  manner,  you  will  not  ask  impossibilities  of  me." 
Much  argument  upon  Lincoln's  next  important  act  may 
be  saved  by  the  simple  observations  that  the  problem  in 
regard  to  the  defence  of  Washington  was  real,  that 
McClellan's  propensity  to  ask  for  the  impossible  was 
also  real,  and  that  Lincoln's  patient  and  loyal  attitude  to 
him  was  real  too. 

Five  days  after  his  arrival  at  Harrison's  Landing, 
McClellan  wrote  Lincoln  a  long  letter.  It  was  a  treatise 
upon  Lincoln's  political  duties.  It  was  written  as  "  on 
the  brink  of  eternity."  He  was  not  then  in  fact  in  any 
danger,  and  possibly  he  had  composed  it  seven  days  be- 
fore as  his  political  testament;  and  apprehensions,  free 
from  personal  fear,  excuse,  without  quite  redeeming,  its 
inappropriateness.  The  President  is  before  all  things 
not  to  abandon  the  cause.  But  the  cause  should  be  fought 
for  upon  Christian  principles.  Christian  principles  ex- 
clude warfare  on  private  property.  More  especially  do 
they  exclude  measures  for  emancipating  slaves.  And  if 
the  President  gives  way  to  radical  views  on  slavery,  he 
will  get  no  soldiers.  Then  follows  a  mandate  to  the 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  301 

President  to  appoint  a  Commander-in-Chicf,  not  neces- 
sarily the  writer.  Such  a  summary  does  injustice  to  a 
certain  elevation  of  tone  in  the  letter,  but  that  elevation 
is  itself  slightly  strained.  McClellan,  whatever  his  pri- 
vate opinions,  had  not  meddled  with  politics  before  he 
left  Washington.  The  question  why  in  this  military  crisis 
he  should  have  written  what  a  Democratic  politician 
might  have  composed  as  a  party  manifesto  must  later 
have  caused  Lincoln  some  thought,  but  it  apparently  did 
not  enter  into  the  decision  he  next  took.  He  arrived  him- 
self at  Harrison's  Landing  next  day.  McClellan  handed 
him  the  letter.  Lincoln  read  it,  and  said  that  he  was 
obliged  to  him.  McClellan  sent  a  copy  to  his  wife  as 
"  a  very  important  record." 

Lincoln  had  come  in  order  to  learn  the  views  of 
McClellan  and  all  his  corps  commanders.  They  differed 
a  good  deal  on  important  points,  but  a  majority  of  them 
were  naturally  anxious  to  stay  and  fight  there.  Lincoln 
was  left  in  some  anxiety  as  to  how  the  health  of  the 
troops  would  stand  the  climate  of  the  coming  months 
if  they  had  to  wait  long  where  they  were.  He  was  also 
disturbed  by  McClellan's  vagueness  about  the  number 
of  his  men,  for  he  now  returned  as  present  for  duty  a 
number  which  far  exceeded  that  which  some  of  his  recent 
telegrams  had  given  and  yet  fell  short  of  the  number 
sent  him  by  an  amount  which  no  reasonable  estimate  of 
killed,  wounded,  and  sick  could  explain.  This  added  to 
Lincoln's  doubt  on  the  main  question  presented  to  him. 
McClellan  believed  that  he  could  take  Richmond,  but  he 
demanded  for  this  very  large  reinforcements.  Some  part 
of  them  were  already  being  collected,  but  the  rest  could 
by  no  means  be  given  him  without  leaving  Washington 
with  far  fewer  troops  to  defend  it  than  McClellan  or 
anybody  else  had  hitherto  thought  necessary. 

On  July  24,  the  day  after  his  arrival  at  Washington, 
Halleck  was  sent  to  consult  with  McClellan  and  his  gen- 
erals. The  record  of  their  consultations  sufficiently  shows 
the  intricacy  of  the  problem  to  be  decided.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  health  of  the  climate  in  August  weighed  much 


302  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

with  Halleck,  but  the  most  striking  feature  of  their  con- 
versation was  the  fluctuation  of  McClellan's  own  opinion 
upon  each  important  point — at  one  moment  he  even  gave 
Halleck  the  impression  that  he  wished  under  all  the  cir- 
cumstances to  withdraw  and  to  join  Pope.  When 
Halleck  returned  to  Washington  McClellan  telegraphed 
in  passionate  anxiety  to  be  left  in  the  Peninsula  and  re- 
inforced. On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  officers  of 
highest  rank  with  him  wrote  strongly  urging  with- 
drawal. This  latter  was  the  course  on  which  Lincoln 
and  Halleck  decided.  In  the  circumstances  it  was  cer- 
tainly the  simplest  course  to  concentrate  all  available 
forces  in  an  attack  upon  the  enemy  from  the  direction  of 
Washington  which  would  keep  that  capital  covered  all 
the  while.  It  was  in  any  case  no  hasty  and  no  indefensi- 
ble decision,  nor  is  there  any  justification  for  the  frequent 
assertion  that  some  malignant  influence  brought  it  about. 
It  is  one  of  the  steps  taken  by  Lincoln  which  have  been 
the  most  often  lamented.  But  if  McClellan  had  had  all 
he  demanded  to  take  Richmond  and  had  made  good  his 
promise,  what  would  Lee  have  done?  Lee's  own  an- 
swer to  a  similar  question  later  was,  "  We  would  swap 
queens";  that  is,  he  would  have  taken  Washington.  If 
so  the  Confederacy  would  not  have  fallen,  but  in  all 
probability  the  North  would  have  collapsed,  and  Euro- 
pean Powers  would  at  the  least  have  recognised  the  Con- 
federacy. 

Lincoln  indeed  had  acted  as  any  prudent  civilian  Min- 
ister would  then  have  acted.  But  disaster  followed,  or 
rather  there  followed,  with  brief  interruption,  a  succes- 
sion of  disasters  which,  after  this  long  tale  of  hesitation, 
can  be  quickly  told.  It  would  be  easy  to  represent  them 
as  a  judgment  upon  the  Administration  which  had  re- 
jected the  guidance  of  McClellan.  But  in  the  true  per- 
spective of  the  war,  the  point  which  has  now  been  reached 
marks  the  final  election  by  the  North  of  the  policy  by 
which  it  won  the  war.  McClellan,  even  if  he  had  taken 
Richmond  while  Washington  remained  safe,  would  have 
concentrated  the  efforts  of  the  North  upon  a  line  of  ad« 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  303 

vancc  which  gave  little  promise  of  finally  reducing  the 
Confederacy.  It  is  evident  to-day  that  the  right  course 
for  the  North  was  to  keep  the  threatening  of  Richmond 
and  the  recurrent  hammering  at  the  Southern  forces  on 
that  front  duly  related  to  that  continual  process  by  which 
the  vitals  of  the  Southern  country  were  being  eaten  into 
from  the  west.  This  policy,  it  has  been  seen,  was  present 
to  Lincoln's  mind  from  an  early  day;  the  temptation  to 
depart  from  it  was  now  once  for  all  rejected.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  three  great  Southern  victories,  the  sec- 
ond battle  of  Bull  Run,  Fredericksburg,  and  Chancellors- 
ville,  which  followed  within  the  next  nine  months,  had  no 
lasting  influence.  Jefferson  Davis  might  perhaps  have 
done  well  if  he  had  neglected  all  else  and  massed  every 
man  he  could  gather  to  pursue  the  advantage  which  these 
battles  gave  him.  He  did  not — perhaps  could  not — do 
this.  But  he  concentrated  his  greatest  resource  of  all, 
the  genius  of  Lee,  upon  a  point  at  which  the  real  danger 
did  not  lie. 

Pope  had  now  set  vigorously  to  work  collecting  and 
pulling  together  his  forces,  which  had  previously  been 
scattered  under  different  commanders  in  the  north  of 
Virginia.  He  was  guilty  of  a  General  Order  which 
shocked  people  by  its  boastfulness,  insulted  the  Eastern 
soldiers  by  a  comparison  with  their  Western  comrades, 
and  threatened  harsh  and  most  unjust  treatment  of  the 
civil  population  of  Virginia.  But  upon  the  whole  he 
created  confidence,  for  he  was  an  officer  well  trained  in 
his  profession  as  well  as  an  energetic  man.  The  problem 
was  now  to  effect  as  quickly  as  possible  the  union  of 
Pope's  troops  and  McClellan's  in  an  overwhelming  force. 
Pope  was  anxious  to  keep  McClellan  unmolested  while 
he  embarked  his  men.  So,  to  occupy  the  enemy,  he 
pushed  boldly  into  Virginia;  he  pushed  too  far,  placed 
himself  in  great  danger  from  the  lightning  movements 
which  Lee  now  habitually  employed  Jackson  to  execute, 
but  extricated  himself  with  much  promptitude,  though 
with  some  considerable  losses.  McClellan  had  not  been 
deprived  of  command;  he  was  in  the  curious  and  annoy- 


304  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ing  position  of  having  to  transfer  troops  to  Pope  till, 
for  a  moment,  not  a  man  remained  under  him,  but  the 
process  of  embarking  and  transferring  them  gave  full 
scope  for  energy  and  skill.  McClellan,  as  it  appeared  to 
Lincoln,  performed  his  task  very  slowly.  This  was  not 
the  judgment  of  impatience,  for  McClellan  caused  the 
delay  by  repeated  and  perverse  disobedience  to  Halleck's 
orders.  But  the  day  drew  near  when  150,000  men 
might  be  concentrated  under  Pope  against  Lee's  55,000. 
The  stroke  which  Lee  now  struck  after  earnest  consulta- 
tion with  Jackson  has  been  said  to  have  been  "  perhaps 
the  most  daring  in  the  history  of  warfare."  He  divided 
his  army  almost  under  the  enemy's  eyes  and  sent  Jack- 
son by  a  circuitous  route  to  cut  Pope's  communications 
with  Washington.  Then  followed  an  intricate  tactical 
game,  in  which  each  side  was  bewildered  as  to  the  move- 
ments of  the  other.  Pope  became  exasperated  and  aban- 
doned his  prudence.  He  turned  on  his  enemy  when  he 
should  and  could  have  withdrawn  to  a  safe  position  and 
waited.  On  August  29  and  30,  in  the  ominous  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Bull  Run  and  of  Manassas,  he  sustained 
a  heavy  defeat.  Then  he  abandoned  hope  before  he 
need  have  done  so,  and,  alleging  that  his  men  were  de- 
moralised, begged  to  be  withdrawn  within  the  defence* 
of  Washington,  where  he  arrived  on  September  3,  and, 
as  was  inevitable  in  the  condition  of  his  army,  was  re- 
lieved of  his  command.  McClellan,  in  Lincoln's  opinion, 
had  now  been  guilty  of  the  offence  which  that  generous 
mind  would  find  it  hardest  to  forgive.  He  had  not  be* 
stirred  himself  to  get  his  men  to  Pope.  In  Lincoln's 
belief  at  the  time  he  had  wished  Pope  to  fail.  McClellan, 
who  reached  Washington  at  the  crisis  of  Pope's  diffi- 
culties, was  consulted,  and  said  to  Lincoln  that  Pope 
must  be  left  to  get  out  of  his  scrape  as  best  he  could.  It 
was  perhaps  only  an  awkward  phrase,  but  it  did  not 
soften  Lincoln. 

Washington  was  now  too  strongly  held  to  be  attacked, 
but  Lee  determined  to  invade  Maryland.  At  least  this 
would  keep  Virginia  safe  during  harvest  time.  It  might 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  305 

win  him  many  recruits  in  Maryland.  It  would  frighten 
the  North,  all  the  more  because  a  Confederate  force 
further  west  was  at  that  same  time  invading  Kentucky; 
it  might  accomplish  there  was  no  saying  how  much.  This 
much,  one  may  gather  from  the  "  Life  of  Lord  John 
Russell,"  any  great  victory  of  the  South  on  Northern 
soil  would  probably  have  accomplished :  the  Confederacy 
would  have  been  recognised,  as  Jefferson  Davis  longed 
for  it  to  be,  by  European  Powers.  Lincoln  now  acted 
in  total  disregard  of  his  Cabinet  and  of  all  Washington, 
and  in  equal  disregard  of  any  false  notions  of  dignity. 
By  word  of  mouth  he  directed  McClellan  to  take  com- 
mand of  all  the  troops  at  Washington.  His  opinion  of 
McClellan  had  not  altered,  but,  as  he  said  to  his  private 
secretaries,  if  McClellan  could  not  fight  himself,  he  ex- 
celled in  making  others  ready  to  fight.  No  other  step 
could  have  succeeded  so  quickly  in  restoring  order  and 
confidence  to  the  Army.  Few  or  no  instructions  were 
given  to  McClellan.  He  was  simply  allowed  the  freest 
possible  hand,  and  was  watched  with  keen  solicitude  as 
to  how  he  would  rise  to  his  opportunity. 

Lee,  in  his  advance,  expected  his  opponent  to  be  slow. 
He  actually  again  divided  his  small  army,  leaving  Jack- 
son with  a  part  of  it  behind  for  a  while  to  capture,  as 
he  did,  the  Northern  fort  at  Harper's  Ferry.  A  North- 
ern private  picked  up  a  packet  of  cigars  dropped  by 
some  Southern  officer  with  a  piece  of  paper  round  it. 
The  paper  was  a  copy  of  an  order  of  Lee's  which  re- 
vealed to  McClellan  the  opportunity  now  given  him  of 
crushing  Lee  in  detail.  But  he  did  not  rouse  himself. 
He  was  somewhat  hampered  by  lack  of  cavalry,  and  his 
greatest  quality  in  the  field  was  his  care  not  to  give 
chances  to  the  enemy.  His  want  of  energy  allowed  Lee 
time  to  discover  what  had  happened  and  fall  back  a 
little  towards  Harper's  Ferry.  Yet  Lee  dared,  without 
having  yet  reunited  his  forces,  to  stop  at  a  point  where 
McClellan  must  be  tempted  to  give  him  battle,  and 
where,  if  he  could  only  stand  against  McClellan,  Jack- 
son would  be  in  a  position  to  deliver  a  deadly  counter- 


306  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

stroke.  Lee  knew  that  for  the  South  the  chance  of  rapid 
success  was  worth  any  risk.  McClellan,  however,  moved 
so  slowly  that  Jackson  was  able  to  join  Lee  before  the 
battle.  The  Northern  army  came  up  with  them  near 
the  north  bank  of  the  Potomac  on  the  Antietam  Creek, 
a  small  tributary  of  that  river,  about  sixty  miles  north- 
east of  Washington.  There,  on  September  17,  1862, 
McClellan  ordered  an  attack,  to  which  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  give  his  personal  direction.  His  corps  com- 
manders led  assaults  on  Lee's  position  at  different  times 
and  in  so  disconnected  a  manner  that  each  was  repulsed 
singly.  But  on  the  following  morning  Lee  found  himself 
in  a  situation  which  determined  him  to  retreat. 

As  a  military  success  the  battle  of  Antietam  demanded 
to  be  followed  up.  Reinforcements  had  now  come  to 
McClellan,  and  Lincoln  telegraphed,  "  Please  do  not  let 
him  get  off  without  being  hurt."  Lee  was  between  the 
broad  Potomac  and  a  Northern  army  fully  twice  as  large 
as  his  own,  with  other  large  forces  near.  McClellan's 
subordinates  urged  him  to  renew  the  attack  and  drive 
Lee  into  the  river.  But  Lee  was  allowed  to  cross  the 
river,  and  McClellan  lay  camped  on  the  Antietam  battle- 
field for  a  fortnight.  He  may  have  been  dissatisfied 
with  the  condition  of  his  army  and  its  supplies.  Some 
of  his  men  wanted  new  boots;  many  of  Lee's  were  limp- 
ing barefoot.  He  certainly,  as  often  before,  exaggerated 
the  strength  of  his  enemy.  Lee  recrossed  the  Potomac 
little  damaged.  Lincoln,  occupied  in  those  days  over 
the  most  momentous  act  of  his  political  life,  watched 
McClellan  eagerly,  and  came  to  the  Antietam  to  see 
things  for  himself.  He  came  back  in  the  full  belief  that 
McClellan  would  move  at  once.  Once  more  undeceived, 
he  pressed  him  with  letters  and  telegrams  from  himself 
and  Halleck.  He  was  convinced  that  McClellan,  if  he 
tried,  could  cut  off  Lee  from  Richmond.  Hearing  of 
the  fatigue  of  McClellan's  horses,  he  telegraphed  about 
the  middle  of  October,  "  Will  you  pardon  me  for  asking 
what  your  horses  have  done  since  the  battle  of  Antietam 
that  tires  anything."  This  was  unkind;  McClellan  in- 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  307 

deed  should  have  seen  about  cavalry  in  the  days  when 
he  was  organising  in  Washington,  but  at  this  moment  the 
Southern  horse  had  just  raided  right  round  his  lines  and 
got  safe  back,  and  his  own  much  inferior  cavalry  was 
probably  worn  out  with  vain  pursuit  of  them.  On  the 
same  day  Lincoln  wrote  more  kindly,  "  My  dear  Sir, 
you  remember  my  speaking  to  you  of  what  I  called  your 
over-cautiousness.  Are  you  not  over-cautious  when  you 
assume  that  you  cannot  do  what  the  enemy  is  constantly 
doing?  Change  positions  with  the  enemy,  and  think  you 
not,  he  would  break  your  communications  with  Rich- 
mond within  the  next  twenty-four  hours."  And  after  a 
brief  analysis  of  the  situation,  which  seems  conclusive, 
he  ends :  "  I  say  '  try  ' ;  if  we  never  try  we  shall  never 
succeed.  .  .  .  If  we  cannot  beat  him  now  when  he 
bears  the  wastage  of  coming  to  us,  we  never  can  when 
we  bear  the  wastage  of  going  to  him."  His  patience 
was  nearing  a  limit  which  he  had  already  fixed  in  his 
own  mind.  On  October  28,  more  than  five  weeks  after 
the  battle,  McClellan  began  to  cross  the  Potomac,  and 
took  a  week  in  the  process.  On  November  5,  McClellan 
was  removed  from  his  command,  and  General  Burnside 
appointed  in  his  place. 

Lincoln  had  longed  for  the  clear  victory  that  he 
thought  McClellan  would  win;  he  gloomily  foreboded 
that  he  might  not  find  a  better  man  to  put  in  his  place; 
he  felt  sadly  how  he  would  be  accused,  as  he  has  been 
ever  since,  of  displacing  McClellan  because  he  was  a 
Democrat.  "  In  considering  military  merit,"  he  wrote 
privately,  "  the  world  has  abundant  evidence  that  I  dis- 
regard politics."  A  friend,  a  Republican  general,  wrote 
to  him  a  week  or  so  after  McClellan  had  been  removed 
to  urge  that  all  the  generals  ought  to  be  men  in  thorough 
sympathy  with  the  Administration.  He  received  a 
crushing  reply  (to  be  followed  in  a  day  or  two  by  a 
friendly  invitation)  indignantly  proving  that  Democrats 
served  as  well  in  the  field  as  Republicans.  But  in  re- 
gard to  McClellan  himself  we  now  know  that  a  grave 
suspicion  had  entered  Lincoln's  mind.  He  might,  per- 


3o8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

haps,  in  the  fear  of  finding  no  one  better,  have  tolerated 
his  "over-cautiousness";  he  did  not  care  what  line  an 
officer  who  did  his  duty  might  in  civil  life  take  politically; 
but  he  would  not  take  the  risk  of  entrusting  the  war 
further  to  a  general  who  let  his  politics  govern  his  strat- 
egy, and  who,  as  he  put  it  simply,  "  did  not  want  to  hurt 
the  enemy."  This,  he  had  begun  to  believe,  was  the 
cause  of  McClellan' s  lack  of  energy.  He  resolved  to  treat 
McClellan's  conduct  now,  in  fighting  Lee  or  in  letting 
him  escape  South,  as  the  test  of  whether  his  own  sus- 
picion about  him  was  justified  or  not.  Lee  did  get  clear 
away,  and  Lincoln  dismissed  McClellan  in  the  full  belief, 
right  or  wrong,  that  he  was  not  sorry  for  Lee's  escape. 
It  is  not  known  exactly  what  further  evidence  Lincoln 
then  had  for  his  belief,  but  information  which  seems  to 
have  come  later  made  him  think  afterwards  that  he 
had  been  right.  The  following  story  was  told  him  by 
the  Governor  of  Vermont,  whose  brother,  a  certain 
General  Smith,  served  under  McClellan  and  was  long  his 
intimate  friend.  Lincoln  believed  the  story;  so  may  we. 
The  Mayor  of  New  York,  a  shifty  demagogue  named 
Fernando  Wood,  had  visited  McClellan  in  the  Peninsula 
with  a  proposal  that  he  should  become  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  with  a  view  to  this 
should  pledge  himself  to  certain  Democratic  politicians 
to  conduct  the  war  in  a  way  that  should  conciliate  the 
South,  which  to  Lincoln's  mind  meant  an  "  inefficient  'r 
way.  McClellan,  after  some  days  of  unusual  reserve, 
told  Smith  of  this  and  showed  him  a  letter  which  he  had 
drafted  giving  the  desired  pledge.  On  Smith's  earnest 
remonstrance  that  this  "  looked  like  treason,"  he  did  not 
send  the  letter  then.  But  Wood  came  again  after  the 
battle  of  Antietam,  and  this  time  McClellan  sent  a  letter 
in  the  same  sense.  This  he  afterwards  confessed  to 
Smith,  showing  him  a  copy  of  the  letter.  Smith  and 
other  generals  asked,  after  this,  to  be  relieved  from 
service  under  him.  If,  as  can  hardly  be  doubted,  Mc- 
Clellan did  this,  there  can  be  no  serious  excuse  for  him, 
and  no  serious  question  that  Lincoln  was  right  when  he 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  309 

concluded  it  was  unsafe  to  employ  him.  McClellan,  ac- 
cording to  all  evidence  except  his  own  letters,  was  a  nice 
man,  and  was  not  likely  to  harbour  a  thought  of  what 
to  him  seemed  treason;  it  is  honourable  to  him  that  he 
wished  later  to  serve  under  Grant  but  was  refused  by 
him.  But,  to  one  of  his  views,  the  political  situation  be- 
fore and  after  Antietam  was  alarming,  and  it  is  certain 
that  to  his  inconclusive  mind  and  character  an  attitude 
of  half  loyalty  would  be  easy.  He  may  not  have  wished 
that  Lee  should  escape,  but  he  had  no  ardent  desire  that 
he  should  not.  Right  or  wrong,  such  was  the  ground 
of  Lincoln's  independent  and  conscientiously  deliberate 
decision. 

The  result  again  did  not  reward  him.  His  choice  of 
Burnside  was  a  mistake.  There  were  corps  commanders 
under  McClellan  who  had  earned  special  confidence,  but 
they  were  all  rather  old.  General  Burnside,  who  was 
the  senior  among  the  rest,  had  lately  succeeded  in  opera- 
tions in  connection  with  the  Navy  on  the  North  Carolina 
coast,  whereby  certain  harbours  were  permanently  closed 
to  the  South.  He  had  since  served  under  McClellan  at 
the  Antietam,  but  had  not  earned  much  credit.  He  was 
a  loyal  friend  to  McClellan  and  very  modest  about  his 
own  capacity.  Perhaps  both  these  things  prejudiced 
Lincoln  in  his  favour.  He  continued  in  active  service  till 
nearly  the  end  of  the  war,  when  a  failure  led  to  his  re- 
tirement; and  he  was  always  popular  and  respected.  At 
this  juncture  he  failed  disastrously.  On  December  n 
and  12,  1862,  Lee's  army  lay  strongly  posted  on  the 
south  of  the  Rappahannock.  Burnside,  in  spite,  as  it 
appears,  of  express  warnings  from  Lincoln,  attacked  Lee 
at  precisely  the  point,  near  the  town  of  Fredericksburg, 
where  his  position  was  really  impregnable.  The  defeat 
of  the  Northern  army  was  bloody  and  overwhelming. 
Burnside's  army  became  all  but  mutinous;  his  corps  com- 
manders, especially  General  Hooker,  were  loud  in  com- 
plaint. He  was  tempted  to  persist,  in  spite  of  all  pro- 
tests, in  some  further  effort  of  rashness.  Lincoln  en- 
deavoured to  restrain  him.  Halleck^  whom  Lincoln 


3io  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

begged  to  give  a  definite  military  opinion,  upholding  or 
overriding  Burnside's,  had  nothing  more  useful  to  offer 
than  his  own  resignation.  After  discussions  and  re- 
criminations among  all  officers  concerned,  Burnside  of- 
fered his  resignation.  Lincoln  was  by  no  means  dis- 
posed to  remove  a  general  upon  a  first  failure  or  to  side 
with  his  subordinates  against  him,  and  refused  to  accept 
it.  Burnside  then  offered  the  impossible  alternative  of 
the  dismissal  of  all  his  corps  commanders  for  disaffec- 
tion to  him,  and  on  January  25,  1863,  his  resignation  was 
accepted. 

There  was  much  discussion  in  the  Cabinet  as  to  the 
choice  of  his  successor.  It  was  thought  unwise  to  give 
the  Eastern  army  a  commander  from  the  West  again. 
At  Chase's  instance  the  senior  corps  commander  who 
was  not  too  old,  General  Hooker,  sometimes  called 
"  Fighting  Joe  Hooker,"  was  appointed.  He  received  a 
letter,  often  quoted  as  the  letter  of  a  man  much  altered 
from  the  Lincoln  who  had  been  groping  a  year  earlier 
after  the  right  way  of  treating  McClellan:  "  I  have 
placed  you,"  wrote  Lincoln,  "  at  the  head  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what 
appear  to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it 
best  for  you  to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regard 
to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you.  I  believe 
you  to  be  a  brave  and  skilful  soldier,  which  of  course  I 
like.  I  also  believe  that  you  do  not  mix  politics  with 
your  profession,  in  which  you  are  right.  You  have  con- 
fidence in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable,  if  not  indis- 
pensable, quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which,  within  rea- 
sonable bounds,  does  good  rather  than  harm;  but  I  think 
that  during  General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army 
you  have  taken  counsel  of  your  ambition  and  thwarted 
him  as  much  as  you  could,  in  which  you  did  a  great 
wrong  to  the  country,  and  to  a  most  meritorious  and 
honourable  brother  officer.  I  have  heard,  in  such  a 
way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  recently  saying  that  both 
the  Army  and  the  Government  needed  a  dictator.  Of 
course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it,  that  I  gave 


THE  DISASTERS  OF  THE  NORTH  311 

you  the  command.  Only  those  generals  who  gain  suc- 
cesses can  set  up  dictators.  What  I  now  ask  of  you  is 
military  success,  and  I  will  risk  the  dictatorship.  The 
Government  will  support  you  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability, 
which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has  done  and  will 
do  for  all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit 
which  you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  crit- 
icising their  commander  and  withholding  confidence  from 
him,  will  now  turn  upon  you.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon, 
if  he  were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army 
while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it;  and  now  beware  of 
rashness.  Beware  of  rashness,  but  with  energy  and  sleep- 
less vigilance  go  forward  and  give  us  victories." 

"  He  talks  to  me  like  a  father,"  exclaimed  Hooker, 
enchanted  with  a  rebuke  such  as  this.  He  was  a  fine, 
frank,  soldierly  fellow,  with  a  noble  figure,  with  "  a 
grand  fighting  head,"  fresh  complexion  and  bright  blue 
eyes.  He  was  a  good  organiser;  he  put  a  stop  to  ths 
constant  desertions;  he  felt  the  need  of  improving  the 
Northern  cavalry;  and  he  groaned  at  the  spirit  with 
which  McClellan  had  infected  his  army,  a  curious  collec- 
tive inertness  among  men  who  individually  were  daring. 
He  seems  to  have  been  highly  strung;  the  very  little 
wine  that  he  drank  perceptibly  affected  him;  he  gave  it 
up  altogether  in  his  campaigns.  And  he  cannot  have 
been  very  clever,  for  the  handsomest  beating  that  Lee 
could  give  him  left  him  unaware  that  Lee  was  a  general. 
In  the  end  of  April  he  crossed  the  Rappahannock  and 
the  Rapidan,  which  still  divided  the  two  armies,  and  in 
the  first  week  of  May,  1863,  a  brief  campaign,  full  of 
stirring  incident,  came  to  a  close  with  the  three  days' 
battle  of  Chancellorsville,  in  which  Hooker,  hurt  and 
dazed  with  pain,  lost  control  and  presence  of  mind,  and, 
with  heavy  loss,  drew  back  across  the  Rappahannock. 
The  South  had  won  another  amazing  victory;  but 
"  Stonewall "  Jackson,  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  had 
fallen  in  the  battle. 

Abroad,  this  crowning  disaster  to  the  North  seemed 
to  presage  the  full  triumph  of  the  Confederacy;  and  it 


3i2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  a  gloomy  time  enough  for  Lincoln  and  his  Ministers. 
A  second  and  more  serious  invasion  by  Lee  was  impend- 
ing, and  the  lingering  progress  of  events  in  the  West,  of 
which  the  story  must  soon  be  resumed,  caused  protracted 
and  deepening  anxiety.  But  the  tide  turned  soon.  More- 
over, Lincoln's  military  perplexities,  which  have  de- 
manded our  detailed  attention  during  these  particular 
campaigns,  were  very  nearly  at  an  end.  We  have  here 
to  turn  back  to  the  political  problem  of  his  Presidency, 
for  the  bloody  and  inconclusive  battle  upon  the  Antietam, 
more  than  seven  months  before,  had  led  strangely  to 
political  consequences  which  were  great  and  memorable. 


CHAPTER   X 

EMANCIPATION 

WHEN  the  news  of  a  second  battle  of  Bull  Run 
reached  England  it  seemed  at  first  to  Lord  John  Russell 
that  the  failure  of  the  North  was  certain,  and  he  asked 
Palmerston  and  his  colleagues  to  consider  whether  they 
must  not  soon  recognise  the  Confederacy,  and  whether 
mediation  in  the  interest  of  peace  and  humanity  might 
not  perhaps  follow.  But  within  two  months  all  thoughts 
of  recognising  the  Confederacy  had  been  so  completely 
put  aside  that  even  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville 
caused  no  renewal  of  the  suggestion,  and  an  invitation 
from  Louis  Napoleon  to  joint  action  of  this  kind  between 
England  and  France  had  once  for  all  been  rejected. 
The  battle  of  Antietam  had  been  fought  in  the  mean- 
time. This  made  men  think  that  the  South  ~ould  no 
more  win  a  speedy  and  decisive  success  than  the  North, 
and  that  victory  must  rest  in  the  end  with  the  side  that 
could  last.  But  that  was  not  all;  the  battle  of  Antietam 
was  followed  within  five  days  by  an  event  which  made 
it  impossible  for  any  Government  of  this  country  to  take 
action  unfriendly  to  the  North. 

On  September  22,  1862,  Abraham  Lincoln  set  his 
hand  to  a  Proclamation  of  which  the  principal  words 
were  these :  "  That,  on  the  first  day  of  January  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State,  or 
designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then 
be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then, 
thenceforward  and  forever  free." 

The  policy  and  the  true  effect  of  this  act  cannot  be 
understood  without  some  examination.  Still  less  so  can 

313 


3i4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  course  of  the  man  who  will  always  be  remembered 
as  its  author.  First,  in  regard  to  the  legal  effect  of  the 
Proclamation;  in  normal  times  the  President  would  of 
course  not  have  had  the  power,  which  even  the  Legisla- 
ture did  not  possess,  to  set  free  a  single  slave ;  the  Procla- 
mation was  an  act  of  war  on  his  part,  as  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  forces,  by  which  slaves  were  to  be  taken 
from  people  at  war  with  the  United  States,  just  as  horses 
or  carts  might  be  taken,  to  subtract  from  their  resources 
and  add  to  those  of  the  United  States.  In  a  curiously 
prophetic  manner,  ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams  had 
argued  in  Congress  many  years  before  that,  if  rebellion 
ever  arose,  this  very  thing  might  be  done.  Adams  would 
probably  have  claimed  that  the  command  of  the  Presi- 
dent became  law  in  the  States  which  took  part  in  the 
rebellion.  Lincoln  only  claimed  legal  force  for  his  Proc- 
lamation in  so  far  as  it  was  an  act  of  war  based  on  suffi- 
cient necessity  and  plainly  tending  to  help  the  Northern 
arms.  If  the  legal  question  had  ever  been  tried  out,  the 
Courts  would  no  doubt  have  had  to  hold  that  at  least 
those  slaves  who  obtained  actual  freedom  under  the 
Proclamation  became  free  in  law;  for  it  was  certainly  in 
good  faith  an  act  of  war,  and  the  military  result  justified 
it.  A  large  amount  of  labour  was  withdrawn  from  the 
industry  necessary  to  the  South,  and  by  the  end  of  the 
war  180,000  coloured  troops  were  in  arms  for  the  North, 
rendering  services,  especially  in  occupying  conquered  ter- 
ritory that  was  unhealthy  for  white  troops,  without 
which,  in  Lincoln's  opinion,  the  war  could  never  have 
been  finished.  The  Proclamation  had  indeed  an  indirect 
effect  more  far-reaching  than  this;  it  committed  the  North 
to  a  course  from  which  there  could  be  no  turning  back, 
except  by  surrender;  it  made  it  a  political  certainty  that 
by  one  means  or  another  slavery  would  be  ended  if  the 
North  won.  But  in  Lincoln's  view  of  his  duty  as  Presi- 
dent, this  ulterior  consequence  was  not  to  determine  his 
action.  The  fateful  step  by  which  the  end  of  slavery 
was  precipitated  would  not  have  taken  the  form  it  did 
take  if  it  had  not  come  to  commend  itself  to  him  as  a 


EMANCIPATION  315 

military  measure   conducing  to  the   suppression  of   re- 
bellion. 

On  the  broader  grounds  on  which  we  naturally  look  at 
this  measure,  many  people  in  the  North  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  been  anxious  from  the  beginning  that  he  should 
adopt  an  active  policy  of  freeing  Southern  slaves.  It 
was  intolerable  to  think  that  the  war  might  end  and 
leave  slavery  where  it  was.  To  convert  the  war  into  a 
crusade  against  slavery  seemed  to  many  the  best  way 
of  arousing  and  uniting  the  North.  This  argument  was 
reinforced  by  some  of  the  American  Ministers  abroad. 
They  were  aware  that  people  in  Europe  misunderstood 
and  disliked  the  Constitutional  propriety  with  which  the 
Union  government  insisted  that  it  was  not  attacking  the 
domestic  institutions  of  Southern  States.  English  people 
did  not  know  the  American  Constitution,  and  when  told 
that  the  North  did  not  threaten  to  abolish  slavery  would 
answer  "  Why  not?  "  Many  Englishmen,  who  might  dis- 
like the  North  and  might  have  their  doubts  as  to  whether 
slavery  was  as  bad  as  it  was  said  to  be,  would  none  the 
less  have  respected  men  who  would  fight  against  it.  They 
had  no  interest  in  the  attempt  of  some  of  their  own  se- 
ceded Colonists  to  coerce,  upon  some  metaphysical  ground 
of  law,  others  who  in  their  turn  wished  to  secede  from 
them.  Seward,  with  wonderful  misjudgment,  had  instructed 
Ministers  abroad  to  explain  that  no  attack  was  threat- 
ened on  slavery,  for  he  was  afraid  that  the  purchasers 
of  cotton  in  Europe  would  feel  threatened  in  their  selfish 
interests;  the  agents  of  the  South  were  astute  enough  to 
take  the  same  line  and  insist  like  him  that  the  North  was 
no  more  hostile  to  slavery  than  the  South.  If  this  mis- 
understanding were  removed  English  hostility  to  the 
North  would  never  again  take  a  dangerous  form. 
Lincoln,  who  knew  less  of  affairs  but  more  of  men  than 
Seward,  was  easily  made  to  see  this.  Yet,  with  full 
knowledge  of  the  reasons  for  adopting  a  decided  policy 
against  slavery,  Lincoln  waited  through  seventeen  months 
of  the  war  till  the  moment  had  come  for  him  to  strike 
his  blow. 


316  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Some  of  his  reasons  for  waiting  were  very  plain.  He 
was  not  going  to  take  action  on  the  alleged  ground  of 
military  necessity  till  he  was  sure  that  the  necessity  ex- 
isted. Nor  was  he  going  to  take  it  till  it  would  actually 
lead  to  the  emancipation  of  a  great  number  of  slaves. 
Above  all,  he  would  not  act  till  he  felt  that  the  North 
generally  would  sustain  his  action,  for  he  knew,  better 
than  Congressmen  who  judged  from  their  own  friends 
in  their  own  constituencies,  how  doubtful  a  large  part  of 
Northern  opinion  really  was.  We  have  seen  how  in  the 
summer  of  1861  he  felt  bound  to  disappoint  the  advanced 
opinion  which  supported  Fremont.  He  continued  for 
more  than  a  year  after  in  a  course  which  alienated  from 
himself  the  confidence  of  the  men  with  whom  he  had 
most  sympathy.  He  did  this  deliberately  rather  than 
imperil  the  unanimity  with  which  the  North  supported 
the  war.  There  was  indeed  grave  danger  of  splitting 
the  North  in  two  if  he  appeared  unnecessarily  to  change 
the  issue  from  Union  to  Liberation.  We  have  to  re- 
member that  in  all  the  Northern  States  the  right  of  the 
Southern  States  to  choose  for  themselves  about  slavery 
had  been  fully  admitted,  and  that  four  of  the  Northern 
States  were  themselves  slave  States  all  this  while. 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  explanation  of  his  delay.  It 
is  certain  that  apart  from  this  danger  he  would  at  first 
rather  not  have  played  the  historic  part  which  he  did  play 
as  the  liberator  of  the  slaves,  if  he  could  have  succeeded 
in  the  more  modest  part  of  encouraging  a  process  of 
gradual  emancipation.  In  his  Annual  Message  to  Con- 
gress in  December,  1861,  he  laid  down  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  his  policy  in  this  matter.  He  gave  warning 
in  advance  to  the  Democrats  of  the  North,  who  were 
against  all  interference  with  Southern  institutions,  that 
"  radical  and  extreme  measures  "  might  become  indis- 
pensable to  military  success,  and  if  indispensable  would 
be  taken;  but  he  declared  his  anxiety  that  if  possible  the 
conflict  with  the  South  should  not  "  degenerate  into  a 
violent  and  remorseless  revolutionary  struggle,"  for  he 
looked  forward  with  fear  to  a  complete  overturning  of 


EMANCIPATION  317 

the  social  system  of  the  South.  He  feared  it  not  only 
for  the  white  people  but  also  for  the  black.  "  Gradual 
and  not  sudden  emancipation,"  he  said,  in  a  later  Mes- 
sage, "  is  better  for  all."  It  is  now  probable  that  he 
was  right,  and  yet  it  is  difficult  not  to  sympathise  with 
the  earnest  Republicans  who  were  impatient  at  his  delay, 
who  were  puzzled  and  pained  by  the  free  and  easy  way 
in  which  in  grave  conversation  he  would  allude  to  "  the 
nigger  question,"  and  who  concluded  that  "  the  Presi- 
dent is  not  with  us;  has  no  sound  Anti-slavery  sentiment." 
Indeed,  his  sentiment  did  differ  from  theirs.  Certainly,  he 
hated  slavery;  for  he  had  contended  more  stubbornly 
than  any  other  man  against  any  concession  which  seemed 
to  him  to  perpetuate  slavery  by  stamping  it  with  ap- 
proval; but  his  hatred  of  it  left  him  quite  without  the 
passion  of  moral  indignation  against  the  slave  owners, 
in  whose  guilt  the  whole  country,  North  and  South, 
seemed  to  him  an  accomplice.  He  would  have  classed 
that  very  natural  indignation  under  the  head  of  "  malice  " 
— "  I  shall  do  nothing  in  malice,"  he  wrote  to  a  citizen 
of  Louisiana;  "  what  I  deal  with  is  too  vast  for  malicious 
-dealing."  But  it  was  not,  as  we  shall  see  before  long, 
too  vast  for  an  interest,  as  sympathetic  as  it  was  matter 
of  fact,  in  the  welfare  of  the  negroes.  They  were  actual 
human  beings  to  him,  and  he  knew  that  the  mere  abroga- 
tion of  the  law  of  slavery  was  not  the  only  thing  neces- 
sary to  their  advancement.  Looking  back,  with  knowl- 
edge of  what  happened  later,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  glad 
that  they  were  emancipated  somehow,  but  we  are  forced 
to  regret  that  they  could  not  have  been  emancipated  by 
some  more  considerate  process.  Lincoln,  perhaps  alone 
among  the  Americans  who  were  in  earnest  in  this  matter, 
looked  at  it  very  much  in  the  light  in  which  all  men  look 
at  it  to-day. 

In  the  early  part  of  1862  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment concluded  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  for  the  more 
effectual  suppression  of  the  African  slave  trade,  and  it 
happened  about  the  same  time  that  the  first  white  man 
ever  executed  as  a  pirate  under  the  American  law  against 


3i8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  slave  trade  was  hanged  in  New  York.  In  those 
months  Lincoln  was  privately  trying  to  bring  about  the 
passing  by  the  Legislature  of  Delaware  of  an  Act  for 
emancipating,  with  fit  provisions  for  their  welfare,  the 
few  slaves  in  that  State,  conditionally  upon  compensation 
to  be  paid  to  the  owners  by  the  United  States.  He  hoped 
that  if  this  example  were  set  by  Delaware,  it  would  be 
followed  in  Maryland,  and  would  spread  later.  The 
Delaware  House  were  favourable  to  the  scheme,  but 
the  Senate  of  the  State  rejected  it.  Lincoln  now  made  a 
more  public  appeal  in  favour  of  his  policy.  In  March, 
1862,  he  sent  a  Message  to  Congress,  which  has  already 
been  quoted,  and  in  which  he  urged  the  two  Houses  to 
pass  Resolutions  pledging  the  United  States  to  give  pecu- 
niary help  to  any  State  which  adopted  gradual  emanci- 
pation. It  must  be  obvious  that  if  the  slave  States  of 
the  North  could  have  been  led  to  adopt  this  policy  it 
would  have  been  a  fitting  preliminary  to  any  action  which 
might  be  taken  against  slavery  in  the  South;  and  the 
policy  might  have  been  extended  to  those  Southern  States 
which  were  first  recovered  for  the  Union.  The  point, 
however,  upon  which  Lincoln  dwelt  in  his  Message  was 
that,  if  slavery  were  once  given  up  by  the  border  States, 
the  South  would  abandon  all  hope  that  they  would  ever 
join  the  Confederacy.  In  private  letters  to  an  editor  of 
a  newspaper  and  others  he  pressed  the  consideration  that 
the  cost  of  compensated  abolition  was  small  in  proportion 
to  what  might  be  gained  by  a  quicker  ending  of  the  war. 
During  the  discussion  of  his  proposal  in  Congress  and 
again  after  the  end  of  the  Session  he  invited  the  Senators 
and  Representatives  of  the  border  States  to  private  con- 
ference with  him  in  which  he  besought  of  them  "  a  calm 
and  enlarged  consideration,  ranging,  if  it  may  be,  far 
above,  personal  and  partisan  politics,"  of  the  opportu- 
nity of  good  now  open  to  them.  The  hope  of  the  Con- 
federacy was,  as  he  then  conceived,  fixed  upon  the  sym- 
pathy which  it  might  arouse  in  the  border  States, 
two  of  which,  Kentucky  and  Maryland,  were  in  fact  in- 
vaded that  year  with  some  hope  of  a  rising  among  the 


EMANCIPATION  319 

inhabitants.  The  "  lever  "  which  the  Confederates  hoped 
to  use  in  these  States  was  the  interest  of  the  slave  owners 
there;  "Break  that  lever  before  their  eyes,"  he  urged. 
But  the  hundred  and  one  reasons  which  can  always  be 
found  against  action  presented  themselves  at  once  to  the 
Representatives  of  the  border  States.  Congress  itself 
so  far  accepted  the  President's  view  that  both  Houses 
passed  the  Resolution  which  he  had  suggested.  Indeed 
it  gladly  did  something  more ;  a  Bill,  such  as  Lincoln  him- 
self had  prepared  as  a  Congressman  fourteen  years  be- 
fore, was  passed  for  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia;  compensation  was  paid  to  the  owners;  a  sum 
was  set  apart  to  help  the  settlement  in  Liberia  of  any  of 
the  slaves  who  were  willing  to  go;  and  at  Lincoln's  sug- 
gestion provision  was  added  for  the  education  of  the 
negro  children.  Nothing  more  was  done  at  this  time. 

Throughout  this  matter  Lincoln  took  counsel  chiefly 
with  himself.  He  could  not  speak  his  full  thought  to  the 
public,  and  apparently  he  did  not  do  so  to  any  of  his 
Cabinet.  Supposing  that  the  border  States  had  yielded 
to  his  persuasion,  it  may  still  strike  us  as  a  very  sanguine 
calculation  that  their  action  would  have  had  much  effect 
upon  the  resolution  of  the  Confederates.  But  it  must 
be  noted  that  when  Lincoln  first  approached  the  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  border  States,  the  highest  expectations 
were  entertained  of  the  victory  that  McClellan  would 
win  in  Virginia,  and  when  he  made  his  last,  rather  despair- 
ing, appeal  to  them,  the  decision  to  withdraw  the  army 
from  the  Peninsula  had  not  yet  been  taken.  If  a  really 
heavy  blow  had  b,een  struck  at  the  Confederates  in  Vir- 
ginia, their  chief  hope  of  retrieving  their  military  for- 
tunes would  certainly  have  lain  in  that  invasion  of  Ken- 
tucky, which  did  shortly  afterwards  occur  and  which  was 
greatly  encouraged  by  the  hope  of  a  rising  of  Kentucky 
men  who  wished  to  join  the  Confederacy.  This  part  of 
Lincoln's  calculations  was  therefore  quite  reasonable. 
And  it  was  further  reasonable  to  suppose  that,  if  the 
South  had  then  given  in  and  Congress  had  acted  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Resolution  which  it  had  passed,  the  policy 


320  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  gradual  emancipation,  starting  in  the  border  States, 
would  have  spread  steadily.  The  States  which  were  dis- 
posed to  hold  out  against  the  inducement  that  the  cost  of 
compensated  emancipation,  if  they  adopted  it,  would  be 
borne  by  the  whole  Union,  would  have  done  so  at  a 
great  risk;  for  each  new  free  State  would  have  been  dis- 
posed before  long  to  support  a  Constitutional  Amend- 
ment to  impose  enfranchisement,  possibly  with  no  com- 
pensation, upon  the  States  that  still  delayed.  The  force 
of  example  and  the  presence  of  this  fear  could  not  have 
been  resisted  long.  Lincoln  was  not  a  man  who  could 
be  accused  of  taking  any  course  without  a  reason  well 
thought  out;  we  can  safely  conclude  that  in  the  summer 
of  1862  he  nursed  a  hope,  by  no  means  visionary,  of 
initiating  a  process  of  liberation  free  from  certain  evils 
in  that  upon  which  he  was  driven  back. 

Before,  however,  he  had  quite  abandoned  this  hope 
he  had  already  begun  to  see  his  way  in  case  it  failed. 
His  last  appeal  to  the  border  States  was  made  on  July 
12,  1862,  while  McClellan's  army  still  lay  at  Harrison's 
Landing.  On  the  following  day  he  privately  told  Seward 
and  Bates  that  he  had  "  about  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  a  military  necessity,  absolutely  essential  to 
the  salvation  of  the  nation,  that  we  must  free  the  slaves 
or  be  ourselves  subdued."  On  July  22  he  read  to  his 
Cabinet  the  first  draft  of  his  Proclamation  of  Emanci- 
pation; telling  them  before  he  consulted  them  that  sub- 
stantially his  mind  was  made  up.  Various  members  of 
the  Cabinet  raised  points  on  which  he  had  already  thought 
and  had  come  to  a  conclusion,  but,  as  he  afterwards  told 
a  friend,  Seward  raised  a  point  which  had  never  struck 
him  before.  He  said  that,  if  issued  at  that  time  of  de- 
pression, just  after  the  failure  in  the  Peninsula,  the 
Proclamation  would  seem  like  "  a  cry  of  distress  " ;  and 
that  it  would  have  a  much  better  effect  if  it  were  issued 
after  some  military  success. 

Seward  was  certainly  right.  The  danger  of  division 
in  the  North  would  have  been  increased  and  the  prospect 
of  a  good  effect  abroad  would  have  been  diminished  if 


EMANCIPATION  321 

the  Proclamation  had  been  issued  at  a  time  of  depression 
and  manifest  failure.  Lincoln,  who  had  been  set  on 
issuing  it,  instantly  felt  the  force  of  this  objection.  He 
put  aside  his  draft,  and  resolved  not  to  issue  the  Procla- 
mation till  the  right  moment,  and  apparently  resolved 
to  keep  the  whole  question  open  in  his  own  mind  till  the 
time  for  action  came. 

Accordingly  the  two  months  which  followed  were  not 
only  full  of  anxiety  about  the  war;  they  were  full  for 
him  of  a  suspense  painfully  maintained.  It  troubled 
him  perhaps  comparatively  little  that  he  was  driven  into 
a  position  of  greater  aloofness  from  the  support  and 
sympathy  of  any  party  or  school.  He  must  now  expect 
an  opposition  from  the  Democrats  of  the  North,  for 
they  had  declared  themselves  strongly  against  the  Reso- 
lution which  he  had  induced  Congress  to  pass.  And  the 
strong  Republicans  for  their  part  had  acquiesced  in  it 
coldly,  some  of  them  contemptuously.  In  May  of  this 
year  he  had  been  forced  for  a  second  time  publicly  to 
repress  a  keen  Republican  general  who  tried  to  take  this 
question  of  great  policy  into  his  own  hands.  General 
Hunter,  commanding  a  small  expedition  which  had  seized 
Port  Royal  in  South  Carolina  and  some  adjacent  islands 
rich  in  cotton,  had  in  a  grand  manner  assumed  to  declare 
free  all  the  slaves  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  Florida. 
This,  of  course,  could  not  be  let  pass.  Congress,  too,  had 
been  occupied  in  the  summer  with  a  new  measure  for  con- 
fiscating rebel  property;  some  Republicans  in  the  West 
set  great  store  on  such  confiscation;  other  Republicans 
saw  in  it  the  incidental  advantage  that  more  slaves  might 
be  liberated  under  it.  It  was  learnt  that  the  President 
might  put  his  veto  upon  it.  It  seemed  to  purport,  con- 
trary to  the  Constitution,  to  attaint  the  property  of  rebels 
after  their  death,  and  Lincoln  was  unwilling  that  the 
Constitution  should  be  stretched  in  the  direction  of  re- 
vengeful harshness.  The  objectionable  feature  in  the 
Bill  was  removed,  and  Lincoln  accepted  it.  But  the  sus- 
picion with  which  many  Republicans  were  beginning  to 
regard  him  was  now  reinforced  by  a  certain  jealousy  of 


322  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Congressmen  against  the  Executive  power ;  they  grumbled 
and  sneered  about  having  to  "  ascertain  the  Royal  pleas- 
ure "  before  they  could  legislate.  This  was  an  able, 
energetic,  and  truly  patriotic  Congress,  and  must  not  be 
despised  for  its  reluctance  to  be  guided  by  Lincoln.  But 
it  was  reluctant. 

Throughout  August  and  September  he  had  to  deal  in 
the  country  with  dread  on  the  one  side  of  any  revolu- 
tionary action,  and  belief  on  the  other  side  that  he  was 
timid  and  half-hearted.  The  precise  state  of  his  inten- 
tions could  not  with  advantage  be  made  public.  To  up- 
holders of  slavery  he  wrote  plainly,  "  It  may  as  well  be 
understood  once  for  all  that  I  shall  not  surrender  this 
game  leaving  any  available  card  unplayed  " ;  to  its  most 
zealous  opponents  he  had  to  speak  in  an  entirely  different 
strain.  While  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run  was  im- 
pending, Horace  Greeley  published  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  an  "  open  letter "  of  angry  complaint  about 
Lincoln's  supposed  bias  for  slavery.  Lincoln  at  once 
published  a  reply  to  his  letter.  "  If  there  be  in  it,"  he 
said,  "  any  statements  or  assumptions  of  fact  which  I 
may  know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not  now  and  here  con- 
trovert them.  If  there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  impatient 
and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it  in  deference  to  an  old 
friend  whose  heart  I  have  always  supposed  to  be  right. 
My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the 
Union.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any 
slaves  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing 
all  the  slaves  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by 
freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do 
that.  I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am 
doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I 
shall  believe  doing  more  will  help  the  cause.  I  shall 
adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true 


views." 


It  was  probably  easy  to  him  now  to  write  these  master- 
ful generalities,  but  a  week  or  two  later,  after  Pope's 
defeat,  he  had  to  engage  in  a  controversy  which  tried 
his  feelings  much  more  sorely.  It  had  really  grieved 


EMANCIPATION  323 

him  that  clergymen  in  Illinois  had  opposed  him  as  un- 
orthodox, when  he  was  fighting  against  the  extension  of 
slavery.  Now,  a  week  or  two  after  his  correspondence 
with  Greeley,  a  deputation  from  a  number  of  Churches  in 
Chicago  waited  upon  him,  and  some  of  their  members 
spoke  to  him  with  assumed  authority  from  on  high,  com- 
manding him  in  God's  name  to  emancipate  the  slaves. 
He  said,  "  I  am  approached  with  the  most  opposite 
opinions  and  advice,  and  that  by  religious  men  who  are 
equally  certain  that  they  represent  the  divine  will.  I  am 
sure  that  either  the  one  or  the  other  class  is  mistaken 
in  that  belief,  and  perhaps  in  some  respects  both.  I  hope 
it  will  not  be  irreverent  for  me  to  say  that,  if  it  is  prob- 
able that  God  would  reveal  His  will  to  others,  on  a  point 
so  connected  with  my  duty,  it  might  be  supposed  He 
would  reveal  it  directly  to  me.  What  good  would  a 
proclamation  of  emancipation  from  me  do  especially  as 
we  are  now  situated?  I  do  not  want  to  issue  a  document 
that  the  whole  world  will  see  must  necessarily  be  in- 
operative like  the  Pope's  Bull  against  the  comet.  Do  not 
misunderstand  me,  because  I  have  mentioned  these  ob- 
jections. They  indicate  the  difficulties  that  have  thus  far 
prevented  my  acting  in  some  such  way  as  you  desire.  I 
have  not  decided  against  a  proclamation  of  liberty  to  the 
slaves,  but  hold  the  matter  under  advisement.  And  I 
can  assure  you  that  the  subject  is  on  my  mind,  by  day  and 
night,  more  than  any  other.  Whatever  shall  appear  to  be 
God's  will,  I  will  do."  The  language  of  this  speech, 
especially  when  the  touch  is  humorous,  seems  that  of  a 
strained  and  slightly  irritated  man,  but  the  solemnity 
blended  in  it  showed  Lincoln's  true  mind. 

In  this  month,  September,  1862,  he  composed  for  his 
own  reading  alone  a  sad  and  inconclusive  fragment  of 
meditation  which  was  found  after  his  death.  "  The  will 
of  God  prevails,"  he  wrote.  "In  great  contests  each 
party  claims  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God. 
Both  may  be  and  one  must  be  wrong.  God  cannot  be 
for  and  against  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time.  In  the 
present  civil  war  it  k  quite  possible  that  God's  purpose 


324  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

is  something  different  from  the  purpose  of  either  party, 
and  yet  the  human  instrumentalities,  working  just  as  they 
do,  are  of  the  best  adaptation  to  effect  His  purpose.  I 
am  almost  ready  to  say  that  this  is  probably  true,  that 
God  wills  this  contest,  and  wills  that  it  shall  not  end  yet. 
By  His  mere  great  power  on  the  minds  of  the  contestants, 
He  could  have  either  saved  or  destroyed  the  Union 
without  a  human  contest.  Yet  the  contest  began,  and, 
having  begun,  He  could  give  the  final  victory  to  either 
side  any  day.  Yet  the  contest  proceeds."  For  Lincoln's 
own  part  it  seemed  his  plain  duty  to  do  what  in  the  cir- 
cumstances he  thought  safest  for  the  Union,  and  yet  he 
was  almost  of  a  mind  with  the  deputation  which  had 
preached  to  him,  that  he  must  be  doing  God's  will  in 
taking  a  great  step  towards  emancipation.  The  solution, 
that  the  great  step  must  be  taken  at  the  first  opportune 
moment,  was  doubtless  clear  enough  in  principle,  but  it 
must  always  remain  arguable  whether  any  particular 
moment  was  opportune.  He  told  soon  afterwards  how 
his  mind  was  finally  made  up. 

On  the  day  that  he  received  the  news  of  the  battle  of 
Antietam,  the  draft  Proclamation  was  taken  from  its 
drawer  and  studied  afresh;  his  visit  to  McClellan  on  the 
battlefield  intervened;  but  on  the  fifth  day  after  the 
battle  the  Cabinet  was  suddenly  called  together.  When 
the  Ministers  had  assembled  Lincoln  first  entertained 
them  by  reading  the  short  chapter  of  Artemus  Ward 
entitled  "  High-handed  Outrage  at  Utica."  It  is  less 
amusing  than  most  of  Artemus  Ward;  but  it  had  just 
appeared;  it  pleased  all  the  Ministers  except  Stanton, 
to  whom  the  frivolous  reading  he  sometimes  had  to  hear 
from  Lincoln  was  a  standing  vexation;  and  it  was  pre- 
cisely that  sort  of  relief  to  which  Lincoln's  mind  when 
overwrought  could  always  turn.  Having  thus  composed 
himself  for  business,  he  reminded  his  Cabinet  that  he 
had,  as  they  were  aware,  thought  a  great  deal  about  the 
relation  of  the  war  to  slavery,  and  had  a  few  weeks  be- 
fore read  them  a  draft  Proclamation  on  this  subject. 
Ever  since  then,  he  said,  his  mind  had  been  occupied 


EMANCIPATION  325 

on  the  matter,  and,  though  he  wished  it  were  a  better 
time,  he  thought  the  time  had  come  now.  "  When  the 
rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,"  he  is  related  to  have  con- 
tinued, "  I  determined,  as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven 
out  of  Maryland,  to  issue  a  Proclamation  of  Emancipa- 
tion such  as  I  thought  likely  to  be  most  useful.  I  said 
nothing  to  any  one,  but  I  made  the  promise  to  myself 
and  " — here  he  hesitated  a  little — "  to  my  Maker.  The 
rebel  army  is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfil 
that  promise.  I  have  got  you  together  to  hear  what  I 
have  written  down.  I  do  not  wish  your  advice  about  the 
main  matter,  for  that  I  have  determined  for  myself. 
This  I  say  without  intending  anything  but  respect  for  any 
one  of  you."  He  then  invited  their  suggestions  upon  the 
expressions  used  in  his  draft  and  other  minor  matters, 
and  concluded :  "  One  other  observation  I  will  make. 
I  know  very  well  that  many  others  might  in  this  matter, 
as  in  others,  do  better  than  I  can;  and  if  I  was  satisfied 
that  the  public  confidence  was  more  fully  possessed  by 
any  one  of  them  than  by  me,  and  knew  of  any  constitu- 
tional way  in  which  he  could  be  put  in  my  place,  he 
should  have  it.  I  would  gladly  yield  it  to  him.  But 
though  I  believe  I  have  not  so  much  of  the  confidence 
of  the  people  as  I  had  some  time  since,  I  do  not  know 
that,  all  things  considered,  any  other  person  has  more; 
and,  however  this  may  be,  there  is  no  way  in  which  I 
can  have  any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  I  am  here; 
I  must  do  the  best  I  can,  and  bear  the  responsibility  of 
taking  the  course  which  I  feel  I  ought  to  take."  Then 
he  read  his  draft,  and  in  the  long  discussion  which  fol- 
lowed, and  owing  to  which  a  few  slight  changes  were 
made  in  it,  he  told  them  further,  without  any  false  re- 
serve, just  how  he  came  to  his  decision.  In  his  great 
perplexity  he  had  gone  on  his  knees,  before  the  battle  of 
Antietam,  and,  like  a  child,  he  had  promised  that  if  a 
victory  was  given  which  drove  the  enemy  out  of  Mary- 
land he  would  consider  it  as  an  indication  that  it  was  his 
duty  to  move  forward.  "  It  might  be  thought  strange," 
he  said,  "  that  he  had  in  this  way  submitted  the  disposal 


326  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  matters,  when  the  way  was  not  clear  to  his  mind  what 
he  should  do.  God  had  decided  this  question  in  favour 
of  the  slaves." 

Such  is  the  story  of  what  we  may  now  remember  as 
one  of  the  signal  events  in  the  chequered  progress  of 
Christianity.  We  have  to  follow  its  consequences  a  little 
further.  These  were  not  at  first  all  that  its  author  would 
have  hoped.  "  Commendation  in  newspapers  and  by  dis- 
tinguished individuals  is,"  he  said  in  a  private  letter,  "  all 
that  a  vain  man  could  wish,"  but  recruits  for  the  Army 
did  not  seem  to  come  in  faster.  In  October  and  Novem- 
ber there  were  elections  for  Congress,  and  in  a  number 
of  States  the  Democrats  gained  considerably,  though  it 
was  noteworthy  that  the  Republicans  held  their  ground 
not  only  in  New  England  and  in  the  furthest  Western 
States,  but  also  in  the  border  slave  States.  The  Demo- 
crats, who  from  this  time  on  became  very  formidable  to 
Lincoln,  had  other  matters  of  complaint,  as  will  be  seen 
later,  but  they  chiefly  denounced  the  President  for  trying 
to  turn  the  war  into  one  against  slavery.  "  The  Consti- 
tution as  it  is  and  the  Union  as  it  was  "  had  been  their 
election  cry.  The  good  hearing  that  they  got,  now  as  at 
a  later  time,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  people  were  de- 
pressed about  the  war ;  and  it  is  plain  enough  that  Lincoln 
had  been  well  advised  in  delaying  his  action  till  after  a 
military  success.  As  it  was,  there  was  much  that  seemed 
to  show  that  public  confidence  in  him  was  not  strong,  but 
public  confidence  in  any  man  is  hard  to  estimate,  and  the 
forces  that  in  the  end  move  opinion  most  are  not  quickly 
apparent.  There  are  little  indications  that  his  power 
and  character  were  slowly  establishing  their  hold;  it 
seems,  for  instance,  to  have  been  about  this  time  that 
"  old  Abe  "  or  "  Uncle  Abe  "  began  to  be  widely  known 
among  common  people  by  the  significant  name  of  "  Father 
Abraham,"  and  his  secretaries  say  that  he  was  becoming 
conscious  that  his  official  utterances  had  a  deeper  effect 
on  public  opinion  than  any  immediate  response  to  them 
in  Congress  showed. 

In  his  Annual  Message  of  December,  1862,  Lincoln 


EMANCIPATION  327 

put  before  Congress,  probably  with  little  hope  of  result, 
a  comprehensive  policy  for  dealing  with  slavery  justly 
and  finally.  He  proposed  that  a  Constitutional  Amend- 
ment should  be  submitted  to  the  people  providing:  first, 
that  compensation  should  be  given  in  United  States  bonds 
to  any  State,  whether  now  in  rebellion  or  not,  which 
should  abolish  slavery  before  the  year  1900;  secondly, 
that  the  slaves  who  had  once  enjoyed  actual  freedom 
through  the  chances  of  the  war  should  be  permanently 
free  and  that  their  owners  should  be  compensated; 
thirdly,  that  Congress  should  have  authority  to  spend 
money  on  colonisation  for  negroes.  Even  if  the  greater 
part  of  these  objects  could  have  been  accomplished  with- 
out a  Constitutional  Amendment,  it  is  evident  that  such 
a  procedure  would  have  been  more  satisfactory  in  the 
eventual  resettlement  of  the  Union.  He  urged  in  his 
Message  how  desirable  it  was,  as  a  part  of  the  effort  to 
restore  the  Union,  that  the  whole  North  should  be  agreed 
in  a  concerted  policy  as  to  slavery,  and  that  parties  should 
for  this  purpose  reconsider  their  positions.  "  The  dogmas 
of  the  quiet  past,"  he  said,  "  are  inadequate  to  the  stormy 
present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high  with  difficulty,  and 
we  must  rise  with  the  occasion.  As  our  case  is  new,  so 
we  must  think  anew  and  act  anew.  We  must  disenthrall 
ourselves,  and  then  we  shall  save  our  country.  Fellow 
citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We  of  this  Congress 
and  this  Administration  will  be  remembered  in  spite  of 
ourselves.  No  personal  significance  or  insignificance  can 
spare  one  or  another  of  us.  We  say  we  are  for  the 
Union.  The  world  will  not  forget  that  we  say  this.  We 
know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world  knows  we  do 
know  how  to  save  it.  In  giving  freedom  to  the  slave 
we  assure  freedom  to  the  free.  We  shall  nobly  save  or 
meanly  lose  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means 
may  succeed,  this  could  not  fail."  The  last  four  words 
expressed  too  confident  a  hope  as  to  what  Northern 
policy  apart  from  Northern  arms  could  do  towards  end- 
ing the  war,  but  it  was  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  value 
which  a  policy,  concerted  between  parties  in  a  spirit  of 


328  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

moderation,  would  have  had  in  the  settlement  after  vic- 
tory. Every  honest  Democrat  who  then  refused  any 
action  against  slavery  must  have  regretted  it  before  three 
years  were  out,  and  many  sensible  Republicans  who  saw 
no  use  in  such  moderation  may  have  lived  to  regret  their 
part  too.  Nothing  was  done.  It  is  thought  that  Lincoln 
expected  this;  but  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation 
would  begin  to  operate  within  a  month;  it  would  produce 
by  the  end  of  the  war  a  situation  in  which  the  country 
would  be  compelled  to  decide  on  the  principle  of  slavery, 
and  Lincoln  had  at  least  done  his  part  in  preparing  men 
to  face  the  issue. 

Before  this,  the  nervous  and  irritable  feeling  of  many 
Northern  politicians,  who  found  in  emancipation  a  good 
subject  for  quarrel  among  themselves  and  in  the  slow 
progress  of  the  war  a  good  subject  of  quarrel  with  the 
Administration,  led  to  a  crisis  In  Lincoln's  Cabinet.  Rad- 
icals were  inclined  to  think  Seward's  influence  in  the 
Administration  the  cause  of  all  public  evils;  some  of 
them  had  now  got  hold  of  a  foolish  private  letter,  which 
he  had  written  to  Adams  in  England  a  few  months  be- 
fore, denouncing  the  advocates  of  emancipation.  Desir- 
ing his  downfall,  they  induced  a  small  "  caucus  "  of  Re- 
publican Senators  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  party  and 
the  nation  and  send  the  President  a  resolution  demand- 
ing such  changes  in  his  Cabinet  as  would  produce  better 
results  in  the  war.  Discontented  men  of  opposite  opin- 
ions could  unite  in  demanding  success  in  the  war;  and 
Conservative  Senators  joined  in  this  resolution  hoping 
that  it  would  get  rid  not  only  of  Seward,  but  also  of 
Chase  and  Stanton,  the  objects  of  their  particular  antip- 
athy. Seward,  on  hearing  of  this,  gave  Lincoln  his  resig- 
nation, which  was  kept  private.  Though  egotistic,  he 
was  a  clever  man,  and  evidently  a  pleasant  man  to  work 
with;  he  was  a  useful  Minister  under  a  wise  chief,  though 
he  later  proved  a  harmful  one  under  a  foolish  chief. 
Stanton  was  most  loyal,  and  invaluable  as  head  of  the 
War  Department.  Chase,  as  Lincoln  said  in  privatr 
afterwards,  was  "  a  pretty  good  fellow  and  a.  very  able 


EMANCIPATION  329 

man " ;  Lincoln  had  complete  confidence  in  him  as  a 
Finance  Minister,  and  could  not  easily  have  replaced 
him.  But  this  handsome,  dignified,  and  righteous  person 
was  unhappily  a  sneak.  Lincoln  found  as  time  went  on 
that,  if  he  ever  had  to  do  what  was  disagreeable  to  some 
important  man,  Chase  would  pay  court  to  that  important 
man  and  hint  how  differently  he  himself  would  have  done 
as  President.  On  this  occasion  he  was  evidently  aware 
that  Chase  had  encouraged  the  Senators  who  attacked 
Seward.  Much  as  he  wished  to  retain  each  of  the  two 
for  his  own  worth,  he  was  above  all  determined  that  one 
should  not  gain  a  victory  over  the  other.  Accordingly, 
when  a  deputation  of  nine  important  Senators  came  to 
Lincoln  to  present  their  grievances  against  Seward,  they 
found  themselves,  to  their  great  annoyance,  confronted 
with  all  the  Cabinet  except  Seward,  who  had  resigned, 
and  they  were  invited  by  Lincoln  to  discuss  the  matter 
in  his  presence  with  these  Ministers.  Chase,  to  his  still 
greater  annoyance,  found  himself,  as  the  principal  Min- 
ister there,  compelled  for  decency's  sake  to  defend 
Seward  from  the  very  attack  which  he  had  helped  to 
instigate.  The  deputation  withdrew,  not  sure  that,  after 
all,  it  wanted  Seward  removed.  Chase  next  day  tendered, 
as  was  natural,  his  resignation.  Lincoln  was  able,  now 
that  he  had  the  resignations  of  both  men,  to  persuade 
both  of  their  joint  duty  to  continue  in  the  public  service. 
By  this  remarkable  piece  of  riding  he  saved  the  Union 
from  a  great  danger.  The  Democratic  opposition,  not 
actually  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  but  to  any  and 
every  measure  essential  for  it,  was  now  developing,  and 
a  serious  division,  such  as  at  this  stage  any  important 
resignation  would  have  produced  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Republicans,  or,  as  they  now  called  themselves,  the 
"  Union  men,"  would  have  been  perilous. 

On  the  first  day  of  January,  1863,  the  President  signed 
the  further  Proclamation  needed  to  give  effect  to  eman- 
cipation. The  small  portions  of  the  South  which  were 
not  in  rebellion  were  duly  excepted;  the  naval  and  mili- 
tary authorities  were  ordered  to  maintain  the  freedom 


330  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  slaves  seeking  their  protection;  the  slaves  were 
enjoined  to  abstain  from  violence  and  to  "  labour  faith- 
fully for  reasonable  wages  "  if  opportunity  were  given 
them;  all  suitable  slaves  were  to  be  taken  into  armed 
service,  especially  for  garrison  duties.  Before  the  end 
of  1863,  a  hundred  thousand  coloured  men  were  already 
serving,  as  combatants  or  as  labourers,  on  military  work 
in  about  equal  number.  They  were  needed,  for  volun- 
teering was  getting  slack,  and  the  work  of  guarding  and 
repairing  railway  lines  was  specially  repellent  to  North- 
ern volunteers.  The  coloured  regiments  fought  well; 
they  behaved  well  in  every  way.  Atrocious  threats  of 
vengeance  on  them  and  their  white  officers  were  officially 
uttered  by  Jefferson  Davis,  but,  except  for  one  hideous 
massacre  wrought  in  the  hottest  of  hot  blood,  only  a  few 
crimes  by  individuals  were  committed  in  execution  of 
these  threats.  To  Lincoln  himself  it  was  a  stirring 
thought  that  when  democratic  government  was  finally 
vindicated  and  restored  by  the  victory  of  the  Union, 
"  then  there  will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember 
that  with  silent  tongue  and  clenched  teeth  and  steady  eye 
and  well-poised  bayonet  they  have  helped  mankind  on  to 
this  great  consummation."  There  was,  however,  preju- 
dice at  first  among  many  Northern  officers  against  negro 
enlistment.  The  greatest  of  the  few  great  American 
artists,  St.  Gaudens,  commemorated  in  sculpture  (as  the 
donor  of  the  new  playing  fields  at  Harvard  commem- 
orated by  his  gift)  the  action  of  a  brilliant  and  popular 
Massachusetts  officer,  Robert  Gould  Shaw,  who  set  the 
example  of  leaving  his  own  beloved  regiment  to  take 
command  of  a  coloured  regiment,  at  the  head  of  which 
he  died,  gallantly  leading  them  and  gallantly  followed 
by  them  in  a  desperate  fight. 

It  was  easier  to  raise  and  train  these  negro  soldiers 
than  to  arrange  for  the  control,  shelter,  and  employment 
of  the  other  refugees  who  crowded  especially  to  the  pro- 
tection of  Grant's  army  in  the  West.  The  efforts  made 
for  their  benefit  cannot  be  related  here,  but  the  recollec- 
tions of  Army  Chaplain  John  Eaton,  whom  Grant 


EMANCIPATION  33 1 

selected  to  take  charge  of  them  in  the  West,  throw  a 
little  more  light  on  Lincoln  and  on  the  spirit  of  his  deal- 
ing with  "  the  nigger  question."  When  Eaton  after  some 
time  had  to  come  to  Washington,  upon  the  business  of 
his  charge  and  to  visit  the  President,  he  received  that 
impression,  of  versatile  power  and  of  easy  mastery  over 
many  details  as  well  as  over  broad  issues,  which  many 
who  worked  under  Lincoln  have  described,  but  he  was 
above  all  struck  with  the  fact  that  from  a  very  slight 
experience  in  early  life  Lincoln  had  gained  a  knowledge 
of  negro  character  such  as  very  few  indeed  in  the  North 
possessed.  He  was  subjected  to  many  seemingly  trivial 
questions,  of  which  he  was  quick  enough  to  see  the  grave 
purpose,  about  all  sorts  of  persons  and  things  in  the 
West,  but  he  was  also  examined  closely,  in  a  way  which 
commanded  his  fullest  respect  as  an  expert,  about  the 
ideas,  understanding,  and  expectations  of  the  ordinary 
negroes  under  his  care,  and  more  particularly  as  to  the 
past  history  and  the  attainments  of  the  few  negroes  who 
had  become  prominent  men,  and  who  therefore  best  illus- 
trated the  real  capacities  of  their  race.  Later  visits  to 
the  capital  and  to  Lincoln  deepened  this  impression,  and 
convinced  Eaton,  though  by  trifling  signs,  of  the  rare 
quality  of  Lincoln's  sympathy.  Once,  after  Eaton's  diffi- 
cult business  had  been  disposed  of,  the  President  turned 
to  relating  his  own  recent  worries  about  a  colony  of 
negroes  which  he  was  trying  to  establish  on  a  small  island 
off  Hayti.  There  flourishes  in  Southern  latitudes  a  minute 
creature  called  Dermatophilus  penetrans,  or  the  jigger, 
which  can  inflict  great  pain  on  barefooted  people  by 
housing  itself  under  their  toe-nails.  This  Colony  had  a 
plague  of  jiggers,  and  every  expedient  for  defeating  them 
had  failed.  Lincoln  was  not  merely  giving  the  practical 
attention  to  this  difficulty  that  might  perhaps  be  ex- 
pected; the  Chaplain  was  amazed  to  find  that  at  that 
moment,  at  the  turning  point  of  the  war,  a  few  days 
only  after  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg,  with  his  enormous 
pre-occupations,  the  President's  mind  had  room  for  real 
and  keen  distress  about  the  toes  of  the  blacks  in  the  Cow 


332  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Island.  At  the  end  of  yet  another  interview  Eaton  was 
startled  by  the  question,  put  by  the  President  with  an  air 
of  shyness,  whether  Frederick  Douglass,  a  well-known 
negro  preacher,  could  be  induced  to  visit  him.  Of  course 
he  could.  Frederick  Douglass  was  then  reputed  to  be 
the  ablest  man  ever  born  as  a  negro  slave ;  he  must  have 
met  many  of  the  best  and  kindest  Northern  friends  of 
the  negro;  and  he  went  to  Lincoln  distressed  at  some 
points  in  his  policy,  particularly  at  his  failure  to  make 
reprisals  for  murders  of  negro  prisoners  by  Southern 
troops.  When  he  came  away  he  was  in  a  state  little 
short  of  ecstasy.  It  was  not  because  he  now  understood, 
as  he  did,  Lincoln's  policy.  Lincoln  had  indeed  won  his 
warm  approval  when  he  told  him  "  with  a  quiver  in  his 
voice  "  of  his  horror  of  killing  men  in  cold  blood  for 
what  had  been  done  by  others,  and  his  dread  of  what 
might  follow  such  a  policy;  but  he  had  a  deeper  gratifi- 
cation, the  strangeness  of  which  it  is  sad  to  realise.  "  He 
treated  me  as  a  man,"  exclaimed  Douglass.  "  He  did 
not  let  me  feel  for  a  moment  that  there  was  any  differ- 
ence in  the  colour  of  our  skins." 

Perhaps  the  hardest  effort  of  speech  that  Lincoln  ever 
essayed  was  an  address  to  negroes  which  had  to  do  with 
this  very  subject  of  colour.  His  audience  were  men  who 
had  been  free  from  birth  or  for  some  time  and  were 
believed  to  be  leaders  among  their  community.  It  was 
Lincoln's  object  to  induce  some  of  them  to  be  pioneers 
in  an  attempt  at  colonisation  in  some  suitable  climate,  an 
attempt  which  he  felt  must  fail  if  it  started  with  negroes 
whose  "  intellects  were  clouded  by  slavery."  He  clung 
to  these  projects  of  colonisation,  as  probably  the  best 
among  the  various  means  by  which  the  improvement  of 
the  negro  must  be  attempted,  because  their  race,  "  suffer- 
ing the  greatest  wrong  ever  inflicted  on  any  people," 
would  "  yet  be  far  removed  from  being  on  an  equality 
with  the  white  race"  when  they  ceased  to  be  slaves;  a 
"  physical  difference  broader  than  exists  between  almost 
any  other  two  races  "  and  constituting  "  a  greater  dis- 
advantage to  us  both,"  would  always  set  a  "  ban  "  upon 


EMANCIPATION  333 

the  negroes  even  where  they  were  best  treated  in  Amer- 
ica. This  unpalatable  fact  he  put  before  them  with  that 
total  absence  of  pretence  which  was  probably  the  only 
possible  form  of  tact  in  such  a  discussion,  with  no  affecta- 
tion of  a  hope  that  progress  would  remove  it  or  of  a 
desire  that  the  ordinary  white  man  should  lose  the  in- 
stinct that  kept  him  apart  from  the  black.  But  this  only 
makes  more  apparent  his  simple  recognition  of  an  equal- 
ity and  fellowship  which  did  exist  between  him  and  his 
hearers  in  a  larger  matter  than  that  of  social  intercourse 
or  political  combination.  His  appeal  to  their  capacity 
for  taking  large  and  unselfish  views  was  as  direct  and  as 
confident  as  in  his  addresses  to  his  own  people;  it  was 
made  in  the  language  of  a  man  to  whom  the  public  spirit 
which  might  exist  among  black  people  was  of  the  same 
quality  as  that  which  existed  among  white,  in  whose  be- 
lief he  and  his  hearers  could  equally  find  happiness  in 
"  being  worthy  of  themselves "  and  in  realising  the 
"  claim  of  kindred  to  the  great  God  who  made  them." 

It  may  be  well  here,  without  waiting  to  trace  further 
the  course  of  the  war,  in  which  at  the  point  where  we 
left  it  the  slow  but  irresistible  progress  of  conquest  was 
about  to  set  in,  to  recount  briefly  the  later  stages  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  America.  In  1863  it  became  ap- 
parent that  popular  feeling  in  Missouri  and  in  Maryland 
was  getting  ripe  for  abolition.  Bills  were  introduced 
into  Congress  to  compensate  their  States  if  they  did  away 
with  slavery;  the  compensation  was  to  be  larger  if  the 
abolition  was  immediate  and  not  gradual.  There  was  a 
majority  in  each  House  for  these  Bills,  but  the  Demo- 
cratic minority  was  able  to  kill  them  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  by  the  methods  of  "  filibustering,"  or,  as 
we  call  it,  obstruction,  to  which  the  procedure  of  that 
body  seems  well  adapted.  The  Republican  majority 
had  not  been  very  zealous  for  the  Bills;  its  members 
asked  "  why  compensate  for  a  wrong  "  which  they  had 
begun  to  feel  would  soon  be  abolished  without  compensa- 
tion; but  their  leaders  at  least  did  their  best  for  the  Bills. 
It  would  have  been  idle  after  the  failure  of  these  pro- 


334  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

posals  to  introduce  the  Bills  that  had  been  contemplated 
for  buying  out  the  loyal  slave  owners  in  West  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Tennessee,  which  was  now  fast  being  re- 
gained for  the  Union.  Lincoln  after  his  Message  of 
December,  1862,  recognised  it  as  useless  for  him  to  press 
again  the  principles  of  gradual  emancipation  or  of  com- 
pensation, as  to  which  it  is  worth  remembrance  that  the 
compensation  which  he  proposed  was  for  loyal  and  dis- 
loyal owners  alike.  His  Administration,  however,  bought 
every  suitable  slave  in  Delaware  for  service  (service  as 
a  free  man)  in  the  Army.  In  the  course  of  1864  a  re- 
markable development  of  public  opinion  began  to  be 
manifest  in  the  States  chiefly  concerned.  In  the  autumn 
of  that  year  Maryland,  whose  representatives  had  paid 
so  little  attention  to  Lincoln  two  years  before,  passed  an 
Amendment  to  the  State  Constitution  abolishing  slavery 
without  compensation.  A  movement  in  the  same  direc- 
tion was  felt  to  be  making  progress  in  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee;  and  Missouri  followed  Maryland's  example 
in  January,  1865.  Meanwhile,  Louisiana  had  been  re- 
conquered, and  the  Unionists  in  these  States,  constantly 
encouraged  and  protected  by  Lincoln  when  Congress 
looked  upon  them  somewhat  coldly  or  his  generals  showed 
jealousy  of  their  action,  had  banded  themselves  together 
to  form  State  Governments  with  Constitutions  that  for- 
bade slavery.  Lincoln,  it  may  be  noted,  had  suggested 
to  Louisiana  that  it  would  be  well  to  frame  some  plan 
by  which  the  best  educated  of  the  negroes  should  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  franchise.  Four  years  after  his  death  a 
Constitutional  Amendment  was  passed  by  which  any  dis- 
tinction as  to  franchise  on  the  ground  of  race  or  colour 
is  forbidden  in  America.  The  policy  of  giving  the  vote 
to  negroes  indiscriminately  had  commended  itself  to  the 
cold  pedantry  of  some  persons,  including  Chase,  on  the 
ground  of  some  natural  right  of  all  men  to  the  suffrage; 
but  it  was  adopted  as  the  most  effective  protection  for 
the  negroes  against  laws,  as  to  vagrancy  and  the  like,  by 
which  it  was  feared  they  might  practically  be  enslaved 
again.  Whatever  the  excuse  for  it,  it  would  seem  to  have 


EMANCIPATION  335 

proved  in  fact  a  great  obstacle  to  healthy  relations  be- 
tween the  two  races.  The  true  policy  in  such  a  matter 
is  doubtless  that  which  Rhodes  and  other  statesmen 
adopted  in  the  Cape  Colony  and  which  Lincoln  had  ad- 
vocated in  the  case  of  Louisiana.  It  would  be  absurd 
to  imagine  that  the  spirit  which  could  champion  the  rights 
of  the  negro  and  yet  face  fairly  the  abiding  difficulty  of 
his  case  died  in  America  with  Lincoln,  but  it  lost  for  many 
a  year  to  come  its  only  great  exponent. 

But  the  question  of  overwhelming  importance,  be- 
tween the  principles  of  slavery  and  of  freedom,  was  ready 
for  final  decision  when  local  opinion  in  six  slave  States 
was  already  moving  as  we  have  seen.  The  Republican 
Convention  of  1864,  which  again  chose  Lincoln  as  its 
candidate  for  the  Presidency,  declared  itself  in  favour  of 
a  Constitutional  Amendment  to  abolish  slavery  once  for 
all  throughout  America.  Whether  the  first  suggestion 
came  from  him  or  not,  it  is  known  that  Lincoln's  private 
influence  was  energetically  used  to  procure  this  resolu- 
tion of  the  Convention.  In  his  Message  to  Congress  in 
1864  he  urged  the  initiation  of  this  Amendment.  Ob- 
servation of  elections  made  it  all  but  certain  that  the 
next  Congress  would  be  ready  to  take  this  action,  but 
Lincoln  pleaded  with  the  present  doubtful  Congress  for 
the  advantage  which  would  be  gained  by  ready,  and  if 
possible,  unanimous  concurrence  in  the  North  in  the 
course  which  would  soon  prevail.  The  necessary  Resolu- 
tion was  passed  in  the  Senate,  but  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives till  within  a  few  hours  of  the  vote  it  was  said 
to  be  "  the  toss  of  a  copper  "  whether  the  majority  of 
two-thirds,  required  for  such  a  purpose,  would  be  ob- 
tained. In  the  efforts  made  on  either  side  to  win  over 
the  few  doubtful  voters  Lincoln  had  taken  his  part.  Right 
or  wrong,  he  was  not  the  man  to  see  a  great  and  benefi- 
cent Act  in  danger  of  postponement  without  being 
tempted  to  secure  it  if  he  could  do  so  by  terrifying  some 
unprincipled  and  white-livered  opponents.  With  the 
knowledge  that  he  was  always  acquiring  of  the  persons 
in  politics,  he  had  been  able  to  pick  out  two  Democratic 


336  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Congressmen  who  were  fit  for  his  purpose — presumably 
they  lay  under  suspicion  of  one  of  those  treasonable 
practices  which  martial  law  under  Lincoln  treated  very 
unceremoniously.  He  sent  for  them.  He  told  them 
that  the  gaining  of  a  certain  number  of  doubtful  votes 
would  secure  the  Resolution.  He  told  them  that  he  was 
President  of  the  United  States.  He  told  them  that  the 
President  of  the  United  States  in  war  time  exercised 
great  and  dreadful  powers.  And  he  told  them  that  he 
looked  to  them  personally  to  get  him  those  votes. 
Whether  this  wrong  manoeuvre  affected  the  result  or  not, 
on  January  31,  1865,  the  Resolution  was  passed  in  the 
House  by  a  two-thirds  majority  with  a  few  votes  to  spare, 
and  the  great  crowd  in  the  galleries,  defying  all  prece- 
dent, broke  out  in  a  demonstration  of  enthusiasm  which 
some  still  recall  as  the  most  memorable  scene  in  their 
lives.  On  December  18  of  that  year,  when  Lincoln  had 
been  eight  months  dead,  William  Seward,  as  Secretary 
of  State,  was  able  to  certify  that  the  requisite  majority 
of  States  had  passed  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  and  the  cause  of  that  "  irrepressible  con- 
flict "  which  he  had  foretold,  and  in  which  he  had  played 
a  weak  but  valuable  part,  was  for  ever  extinguished. 

At  the  present  day,  alike  in  the  British  Empire  and  in 
America,  the  unending  difficulty  of  wholesome  human 
relations  between  races  of  different  and  unequal  develop- 
ment exercises  many  minds;  but  this  difficulty  cannot  ob- 
scure the  great  service  done  by  those  who,  first  in  Eng- 
land and  later  and  more  hardly  in  America,  stamped  out 
that  cardinal  principle  of  error  that  any  race  is  without 
its  human  claim.  Among  these  men  William  Lloyd  Gar- 
rison lived  to  see  the  fruit  of  his  labours,  and  to  know 
and  have  friendly  intercourse  with  Lincoln.  There  have 
been  some  comparable  instances  in  which  men  with  such 
different  characters  and  methods  have  unconsciously  con- 
spired for  a  common  end,  as  these  two  did  when  Garrison 
was  projecting  the  "  Liberator "  and  Lincoln  began 
shaping  himself  for  honourable  public  work  in  the  vague. 
The  part  that  Lincoln  played  in  these  events  did  not 


EMANCIPATION  337 

seem  to  him  a  personal  achievement  of  his  own.  He  ap- 
peared to  himself  rather  as  an  instrument.  "  I  claim 
not,"  he  once  said  in  this  connection,  "  to  have  controlled 
events,  but  confess  plainly  that  events  have  controlled 
me."  In  1864,  when  a  petition  was  sent  to  him  from 
some  children  that  there  should  be  no  more  child  slaves, 
he  wrote,  "  Please  tell  these  little  people  that  I  am  very 
glad  their  young  hearts  are  so  full  of  just  and  generous 
sympathy,  and  that,  while  I  have  not  the  power  to  grant 
all  they  ask,  I  trust  they  will  remember  that  God  has, 
and  that,  as  it  seems,  He  wills  to  do  it."  Yet,  at  least, 
he  redeemed  the  boyish  pledge  that  has  been,  fancifully 
perhaps,  ascribed  to  him;  each  opportunity  that  to  his 
judgment  ever  presented  itself  of  striking  some  blow  for 
human  freedom  was  taken;  the  blows  were  timed  and 
directed  by  the  full  force  of  his  sagacity,  and  they  were 
never  restrained  by  private  ambition  or  fear.  It  is  prob- 
able that  upon  that  cool  review,  which  in  the  case  of  this 
singular  figure  is  difficult,  the  sense  of  his  potent  accom- 
plishment would  not  dimmish,  but  increase. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY 

i.   The  War  to  the  End  of  1863. 

THE  events  of  the  Eastern  theatre  of  war  have  been 
followed  into  the  early  summer  of  1863,  when  Lee  was 
for  the  second  time  about  to  invade  the  North.  The 
Western  theatre  of  war  has  been  left  unnoticed  since  the 
end  of  May,  1862.  From  that  time  to  the  end  of  the 
year  no  definite  progress  was  made  here  by  either  side, 
but  here  also  the  perplexities  of  the  military  administra- 
tion were  considerable;  and  in  Lincoln's  life  it  must  be 
noted  that  in  these  months  the  strain  of  anxiety  about  the 
Eastern  army  and  about  the  policy  of  emancipation  was 
accompanied  by  acute  doubt  in  regard  to  the  conduct  of 
war  in  the  West. 

When  Halleck  had  been  summoned  from  the  West, 
Lincoln  had  again  a  general  by  his  side  in  Washington  to 
exercise  command  under  him  of  all  the  armies.  Halleck 
was  a  man  of  some  intellectual  distinction  who  might  be 
expected  to  take  a  broad  view  of  the  war  as  a  whole; 
this  and  his  freedom  from  petty  feelings,  as  to  which 
Lincoln's  known  opinion  of  him  can  be  corroborated, 
doubtless  made  him  useful  as  an  adviser;  nor  for  a  con- 
siderable time  was  there  any  man  with  apparently  better 
qualifications  for  his  position.  But  Lincoln  soon  found, 
as  has  been  seen,  that  Halleck  lacked  energy  of  will,  and 
cannot  have  been  long  in  discovering  that  his  judgment 
was  not  very  good.  The  President  had  thus  to  make 
the  best  use  he  could  of  expert  advice  upon  which  he 
would  not  have  been  justified  in  relying  very  fully. 

When  Halleck  arrived  at  Corinth  at  the  end  of  May, 
1862,  the  whole  of  Western  and  Middle  Tennessee  was 
for  the  time  clear  of  the  enemy,  and  he  turned  his  atten- 

338 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  339 

tion  at  once  to  the  long  delayed  project  of  rescuing  the 
Unionists  in  Eastern  Tennessee,  which  was  occupied  by 
a  Confederate  army  under  General  Kirby  Smith.  His 
object  was  to  seize  Chattanooga,  which  lay  about  150 
miles  to  the  east  of  him,  and  invade  Eastern  Tennessee 
by  way  of  the  valley  of  the  Tennessee  River,  which  cuts 
through  the  mountains  behind  Chattanooga.  With  this 
in  view  he  would  doubtless  have  been  wise  if  he  had  first 
continued  his  advance  with  his  whole  force  against  the 
Confederate  army  under  Beauregard,  which  after  evacu- 
ating Corinth  had  fallen  back  to  rest  and  recruit  in  a  far 
healthier  situation  50  miles  further  south.  Beauregard 
would  have  been  obliged  either  to  fight  him  with  in- 
ferior numbers  or  to  shut  himself  up  in  the  fortress  of 
Vicksburg.  As  it  was,  Halleck  spent  the  month  of  June 
merely  in  repairing  the  railway  line  which  runs  from 
Corinth  in  the  direction  of  Chattanooga.  When  he  was 
called  to  Washington  he  left  Grant,  who  for  several 
months  past  had  been  kept  idle  as  his  second  in  com- 
mand, in  independent  command  of  a  force  which  was  to 
remain  near  the  Mississippi  confronting  Beauregard,  but 
he  restricted  him  to  a  merely  defensive  part  by  ordering 
him  to  keep  a  part  of  his  army  ready  to  send  to  Buell 
whenever  that  general  needed  it,  as  he  soon  did.  Buell, 
who  again  took  over  his  former  independent  command, 
was  ordered  by  Halleck  to  advance  on  Chattanooga, 
using  Corinth  as  his  base  of  supply.  Buell  had  wished 
that  the  base  for  the  advance  upon  Chattanooga  should 
be  transferred  to  Nashville,  in  the  centre  of  Tennessee, 
in  which  case  the  line  of  railway  communication  would 
have  been  shorter  and  also  less  exposed  to  raids  by  the 
Southern  cavalry.  After  Halleck  had  gone,  Buell  ob- 
tained permission  to  effect  this  change  of  base.  The 
whole  month  of  June  had  been  wasted  in  repairing  the 
railway  with  a  view  to  Halleck's  faulty  plan.  When 
Buell  himself  was  allowed  to  proceed  on  his  own  lines  and 
was  approaching  Chattanooga,  his  communications  with 
Nashville  were  twice,  in  the  middle  of  July  and  in  the 
middle  of  August,  cut  by  Confederate  cavalry  raids,  which 


340  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

did  such  serious  damage  as  to  impose  great  delay  upon 
him.  In  the  end  of  August  and  beginning  of  September 
Kirby  Smith,  whose  army  had  been  strengthened  by 
troops  transferred  from  Beauregard,  crossed  the  moun- 
tains from  East  Tennessee  by  passes  some  distance  north- 
east of  Chattanooga,  and  invaded  Kentucky,  sending  de- 
tachments to  threaten  Louisville  on  the  Indiana  border 
of  Kentucky  and  Cincinnati  in  Ohio.  It  was  necessary 
for  Buell  to  retreat,  when,  after  a  week  or  more  of  un- 
certainty, it  became  clear  that  Kirby  Smith's  main  force 
was  committed  to  this  invasion.  Meanwhile  General 
Bragg,  who,  owing  to  the  illness  of  Beauregard,  had  suc- 
ceeded to  his  command,  left  part  of  his  force  to  hold 
Grant  in  check,  marched  with  the  remainder  to  support 
Kirby  Smith,  and  succeeded  in  placing  himself  between 
Buell's  army  and  Louisville,  to  protect  which  from  Kirby 
Smith  had  become  Buell's  first  object.  It  seems  that 
Bragg,  who  could  easily  have  been  reinforced  by  Kirby 
Smith,  had  now  an  opportunity  of  fighting  Buell  with 
great  advantage.  But  the  Confederate  generals,  who 
mistakenly  believed  that  Kentucky  was  at  heart  with 
them,  saw  an  imaginary  political  gain  in  occupying  Frank- 
fort, the  State  capital,  and  formally  setting  up  a  new 
State  Government  there.  Bragg  therefore  marched  on 
to  join  Kirby  Smith  at  Frankfort,  which  was  well  to  the 
east  of  Buell's  line  of  retreat,  and  Buell  was  able  to  reach 
Louisville  unopposed  by  September  25. 

These  events  were  watched  in  the  North  with  all  the 
more  anxiety  because  the  Confederate  invasion  of  Ken- 
tucky began  just  about  the  time  of  the  second  battle  of 
Bull  Run,  and  Buell  arrived  at  Louisville  within  a  week 
after  the  battle  of  Antietam  while  people  were  wondering 
how  that  victory  would  be  followed  up.  Men  of  intelli- 
gence and  influence,  especially  in  the  Western  States,  were 
loud  in  their  complaints  of  Buell's  want  of  vigour.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  Unionists  of  Kentucky,  who  suffered 
the  most  through  his  supposed  faults,  expressed  their  con- 
fidence in  him;  but  his  own  soldiers  did  not  like  him,  for 
he  was  a  strict  disciplinarian  without  either  tact  or  any 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  341 

quality  which  much  impressed  them.  Their  reports  to 
their  homes  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  from  which 
they  mostly  came,  increased  the  feeling  against  him  which 
was  arising  in  those  States,  and  his  relations  with  the 
Governors  of  Ohio  and  Indiana,  who  were  busy  in  send- 
ing him  recruits  and  whose  States  were  threatened  with 
invasion,  seem,  wherever  the  fault  may  have  lain,  to 
have  been  unfortunate.  Buell's  most  powerful  friend  had 
been  McClellan,  and  by  an  irrational  but  unavoidable 
process  of  thought  the  real  dilatoriness  of  McClellan  be- 
came an  argument  for  blaming  Buell  as  well.  Halleck 
defended  him  loyally,  but  this  by  now  probably  seemed 
to  Lincoln  the  apology  of  one  irresolute  man  for  another. 
Stanton,  whose  efficiency  in  the  business  of  the  War  De- 
partment gave  him  great  weight,  had  become  eager  for 
the  removal  of  Buell.  Lincoln  expected  that  as  soon  as 
Buell  could  cover  Louisville  he  would  take  the  offensive 
promptly.  His  army  appears  to  have  exceeded  in  num- 
bers, though  not  very  much,  the  combined  forces  of  Bragg 
and  Kirby  Smith,  and  except  as  to  cavalry  it  was  prob- 
ably as  good  in  quality.  If  energetically  used  by  Halleck 
some  months  before,  the  Western  armies  should  have 
been  strong  enough  to  accomplish  great  results;  and  if 
the  attempt  had  been  made  at  first  to  raise  much  larger 
armies,  it  seems  likely  that  the  difficulties  of  training  and 
organisation  and  command  would  have  increased  out  of 
proportion  to  any  gain.  Buell  remained  some  days  at 
Louisville  itself,  receiving  reinforcements  which  were 
considerable,  but  consisted  mainly  of  raw  recruits.  While 
he  was  there  orders  arrived  from  Lincoln  removing  him 
and  appointing  his  second  in  command,  the  Virginian 
Thomas,  in  his  place.  This  was  a  wise  choice;  Thomas 
was  one  of  the  four  Northern  generals  who  won  abiding 
distinction  in  the  Civil  War.  But  Thomas  felt  the  in- 
justice which  was  done  to  Buell,  and  he  refused  the  com- 
mand in  a  letter  magnanimously  defending  him.  The 
fact  was  that  Lincoln  had  rescinded  his  orders  before 
they  were  received,  for  he  had  issued  them  under  the 
belief  that  Buell  was  remaining  on  the  defensive,  but 


342  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

learnt  immediately  that  an  offensive  movement  was  in 
progress,  and  had  no  intention  of  changing  commanders 
under  those  circumstances. 

On  October  8  a  battle,  which  began  in  an  accidental 
minor  conflict,  took  place  between  Buell  with  58,000  men 
and  Bragg  with  considerably  less  than  half  that  number 
of  tried  veterans.  Buell  made  little  use  of  his  superior 
numbers,  for  which  the  fault  may  have  lain  with  the  corps 
commander  who  first  became  engaged  and  who  did  not 
report  at  once  to  him;  the  part  of  Buell's  army  which 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  fighting  suffered  heavy  losses,  which 
made  a  painful  impression  in  the  North,  and  the  public 
outcry  against  him,  which  had  begun  as  soon  as  Kentucky 
was  invaded  by  the  Confederates,  now  increased.  After 
the  battle  Bragg  fell  back  and  effected  a  junction  with 
Kirby  Smith.  Their  joint  forces  were  not  very  far  in- 
ferior to  Buell's  in  numbers,  but  after  a  few  more  days 
Bragg  determined  to  evacuate  Kentucky,  in  which  his 
hope  of  raising  many  recruits  had  been  disappointed. 
Buell,  on  perceiving  his  intention,  pursued  him  some  dis- 
tance, but,  finding  the  roads  bad  for  the  movement  of 
large  bodies  of  troops,  finally  took  up  a  position  at 
Bowling  Green,  on  the  railway  to  the  north  of  Nashville, 
intending  later  in  the  autumn  to  move  a  little  south  of 
Nashville  and  there  to  wait  for  the  spring  before  again 
moving  on  Chattanooga.  He  was  urged  from  Washing- 
ton to  press  forward  towards  Chattanooga  at  once,  but 
replied  decidedly  that  he  was  unable  to  do  so,  and  added 
that  if  a  change  of  command  was  desired  the  present  was 
a  suitable  time  for  it.  At  the  end  of  October  he  was 
removed  from  command.  In  the  meantime  the  Confed- 
erate forces  that  had  been  left  to  oppose  Grant  had  at- 
tacked him  and  been  signally  defeated  in  two  engage- 
ments, in  each  of  which  General  Rosecrans,  who  was 
serving  under  Grant,  was  in  immediate  command  on  the 
Northern  side.  Rosecrans,  who  therefore  began  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  promising  general,  and  indeed  was  one 
of  those  who,  in  the  chatter  of  the  time,  were  occasion- 
ally spoken  of  as  suitable  for  a  "  military  dictatorship," 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  343 

was  now  put  in  Buell's  place,  which  Thomas  had  once 
refused.  He  advanced  to  Nashville,  but  was  as  firm  as 
Buell  in  refusing  to  go  further  till  he  had  accumulated 
rations  enough  to  make  him  for  a  time  independent  of  the 
railway.  Ultimately  he  moved  on  Murfreesborough, 
some  thirty  miles  further  in  the  direction  of  Chattanooga. 
Here  on  December  31,  1862,  Bragg,  with  somewhat  in- 
ferior numbers,  attacked  him  and  gained  an  initial  suc- 
cess, which  Rosecrans  and  his  subordinates,  Thomas  and 
Sheridan,  were  able  to  prevent  him  from  making  good. 
Bragg's  losses  were  heavy,  and,  after  waiting  a  few  days 
in  the  hope  that  Rosecrans  might  retreat  first,  he  fell 
back  to  a  point  near  the  Cumberland  mountains  a  little  in 
advance  of  Chattanooga.  Thus  the  battle  of  Murfrees- 
borough counted  as  a  victory  to  the  North,  a  slight  set- 
off  to  the  disaster  at  Fredericksburg  a  little  while  before. 
But  it  had  no  very  striking  consequences.  For  over  six 
months  Rosecrans  proceeded  no  further.  The  Northern 
armies  remained  in  more  secure  possession  of  all  Ten- 
nessee west  of  the  mountains  than  they  had  obtained  in 
the  first  half  of  1862;  but  the  length  of  their  communi- 
cations and  the  great  superiority  of  the  South  in  cavalry, 
which  could  threaten  those  communications,  suspended 
their  further  advance.  Lincoln  urged  that  their  army 
could  subsist  on  the  country  which  it  invaded,  but  Buell 
and  Rosecrans  treated  the  idea  as  impracticable;  in  fact, 
till  a  little  later  all  Northern  generals  so  regarded  it. 

Thus  Chattanooga,  which  it  was  hoped  would  be  occu- 
pied soon  after  Halleck  had  occupied  Corinth,  remained 
in  Southern  hands  for  more  than  a  year  after  that,  not- 
withstanding the  removal  of  Buell,  to  whom  this  disap- 
pointment and  the  mortifying  invasion  of  Kentucky  were 
at  first  attributed.  This  was  rightly  felt  to  be  unsatis- 
factory, but  the  chief  blame  that  can  now  be  imputed  falls 
upon  the  mistakes  of  Halleck  while  he  was  still  com- 
manding in  the  West.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
Buell  had  any  exceptional  amount  of  intuition  or  of  en- 
ergy and  it  was  right  to  demand  that  a  general  with  both 
these  qualities  should  be  appointed  if  he  could  be  found. 


344  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

But  he  was  at  least  a  prudent  officer,  of  fair  capacity, 
doing  his  best.  The  criticisms  upon  him,  of  which  the 
well  informed  were  lavish,  were  uttered  without  apprecia- 
tion of  practical  difficulties  or  of  the  standard  by  which 
he  was  really  to  be  judged.  So,  with  far  more  justice 
than  McClellan,  he  has  been  numbered  among  the  mis- 
used generals.  Lincoln,  there  is  no  doubt,  had  watched 
his  proceedings,  as  he  watched  those  of  Rosecrans  after 
him,  with  a  feeling  of  impatience,  and  set  him  down  as 
unenterprising  and  obstinate.  In  one  point  his  Adminis- 
tration was  much  to  blame  in  its  treatment  of  the  Western 
commanders.  It  became  common  political  talk  that  the 
way  to  get  victories  was  to  treat  unsuccessful  generals 
almost  as  harshly  as  the  French  in  the  Revolution  were 
understood  to  have  treated  them.  Lincoln  did  not  go 
thus  far,  but  it  was  probably  with  his  authority  that  be- 
fore Buell  was  removed  Halleck,  with  reluctance  on  his 
own  part,  wrote  a  letter  referring  to  this  prevalent  idea 
and  calculated  to  put  about  among  the  Western  com- 
manders an  expectation  that  whichever  of  them  first  did 
something  notable  would  be  put  over  his  less  successful 
colleagues.  Later  on,  and,  as  we  can  hardly  doubt,  with 
Lincoln's  consent,  Grant  and  Rosecrans  were  each  in- 
formed that  the  first  of  them  to  win  a  victory  would  get 
the  vacant  major-generalship  in  the  United  States  Army 
in  place  of  his  present  volunteer  rank.  This  was  not  the 
way  to  handle  men  with  proper  professional  pride,  and 
it  is  one  of  those  cases,  which  are  strangely  few,  where 
Lincoln  made  the  sort  of  mistake  that  might  have  been 
expected  from  his  want  of  training  and  not  from  his 
native  generosity.  But  in  the  main  his  treatment  of  this 
difficult  question  was  sound.  Sharing  as  he  did  the  pre- 
vailing impatience  with  Buell,  he  had  no  intention  of 
yielding  to  it  till  there  was  a  real  prospect  that  a  change 
of  generals  would  be  a  change  for  the  better.  When  the 
appointment  of  Thomas  was  proposed  there  really  was 
such  a  prospect.  When  Rosecrans  was  eventually  put  in 
Buell's  place  the  result  was  disappointing  to  Lincoln,  but 
it  was  evidently  not  a  bad  appointment,  and  a  situation 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  345 

had  then  arisen  in  which  it  would  have  been  folly  to  re- 
tain Buell  if  any  capable  successor  to  him  could  be  found; 
for  the  Governors  of  Indiana,  Ohio  and  Illinois,  of  whom 
the  first  named  was  reputed  the  ablest  of  the  "  war  Gov- 
ernors "  in  the  West,  and  on  whom  his  army  depended 
for  recruits,  now  combined  in  representations  against  him 
which  could  not  be  ignored.  Lincoln,  who  could  not 
have  personal  acquaintance  with  the  generals  of  the  West- 
ern armies  as  he  had  with  those  in  the  East,  was,  it  should 
be  observed,  throughout  unceasing  in  his  efforts  to  get 
the  fullest  and  clearest  impression  of  them  that  he  could; 
he  was  always,  as  it  has  been  put,  "  taking  measure- 
ments "  of  men,  and  a  good  deal  of  what  seemed  idle 
and  gossipy  talk  with  chance  visitors,  who  could  tell  him 
little  incidents  or  give  him  new  impressions,  seems  to 
have  had  this  serious  purpose.  For  the  first  half  of  the 
war  the  choice  of  men  for  high  commands  was  the  most 
harassing  of  all  the  difficulties  of  his  administration. 
There  is  no  doubt  of  his  constant  watchfulness  to  discern 
and  promote  merit.  He  was  certainly  beset  by  the  feel- 
ing that  generals  were  apt  to  be  wanting  in  the  vigour 
and  boldness  which  the  conduct  of  the  war  demanded, 
but,  though  this  in  some  cases  probably  misled  him,  upon 
the  whole  there  was  good  reason  for  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  must  be  considered  that  all  this  while  he  knew 
himself  to  be  losing  influence  through  his  supposed  want 
of  energy  in  the  war,  and  that  he  was  under  strong  and 
unceasing  pressure  from  every  influential  quarter  to  dis- 
miss every  general  who  caused  disappointment.  News- 
papers and  private  letters  of  the  time  demonstrate  that 
there  was  intense  impatience  against  him  for  not  pro- 
ducing victorious  generals.  This  being  so,  his  own  pa- 
tience in  this  matter  and  his  resolution  to  give  those  under 
him  a  fair  chance  appear  very  remarkable  and  were  cer- 
tainly very  wise. 

We  have  come,  however,  to  the  end,  not  of  all  the 
clamour  against  Lincoln,  but  of  his  own  worst  perplex- 
ities. In  passing  to  the  operations  further  west  we  are 
passing  to  an  instance  in  which  Lincoln  felt  it  right  to 


346  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

stand  to  the  end  by  a  decried  commander,  and  that  de- 
cried commander  proved  to  possess  the  very  qualities  foi 
which  he  had  vainly  looked  in  others.  The  reverse  side 
of  General  Grant's  fame  is  well  enough  known  to  the 
world.  Before  the  war  he  had  been  living  under  a  cloud. 
In  the  autumn  of  1862,  while  his  army  lay  between 
Corinth  and  Memphis,  the  cloud  still  rested  on  his  repu- 
tation. In  spite  of  the  glory  he  had  won  for  a  moment 
at  Fort  Donelson,  large  circles  were  ready  to  speak  of 
him  simply  as  an  "  incompetent  and  disagreeable  man." 
The  crowning  work  of  his  life  was  accomplished  with 
terrible  bloodshed  which  was  often  attributed  to  callous- 
ness and  incapacity  on  his  part.  The  eight  years  of  his 
Presidency  afterwards,  which  cannot  properly  be  dis- 
cussed here,  added  at  the  best  no  lustre  to  his  memory. 
Later  still,  when  he  visited  Europe  as  a  celebrity  the  gen- 
eral impression  which  he  created  seems  to  be  contained 
in  the  words  "  a  rude  man."  Thus  the  Grant  that  we 
discover  in  the  recollections  of  a  few  loyal  and  loving 
friends,  and  in  the  memoirs  which  he  himself  began  when 
late  in  life  he  lost  his  money  and  which  he  finished  with 
the  pains  of  death  upon  him,  is  a  surprising,  in  some  ways 
pathetic,  figure.  He  had  been  a  shy  country  boy,  ready 
enough  at  all  the  work  of  a  farm  and  good  with  horses, 
but  with  none  of  the  business  aptitude  that  make  a  suc- 
cessful farmer,  when  his  father  made  him  go  to  West 
Point.  Here  he  showed  no  great  promise  and  made  few 
friends;  his  health  became  delicate,  and  he  wanted  to 
leave  the  army  and  become  a  teacher  of  mathematics. 
But  the  Mexican  War,  one  of  the  most  unjust  in  all  his- 
tory, as  he  afterwards  said,  broke  out,  and — so  he  later 
thought — saved  his  life  from  consumption  by  keeping 
him  in  the  open  air.  After  that  he  did  retire,  failed  at 
farming  and  other  ventures,  and  at  thirty-nine,  when  the 
Civil  War  began,  was.  as  has  been  seen,  a  shabby-look- 
ing, shiftless  fellow,  pretty  far  gone  in  the  habit  of  drink, 
and  more  or  less  occupied  about  a  leather  business  of  his 
father's.  Rough  in  appearance  and  in  manner  he  re- 
mained— the  very  opposite  of  smart,  the  very  opposite 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  347 

of  versatile,  the  very  opposite  of  expansive  in  speech  or 
social  intercourse.  Unlike  many  rough  people,  he  had  a 
really  simple  character — truthful,  modest,  and  kind; 
without  varied  interests,  or  complicated  emotions,  or 
much  sense  of  fun,  but  thinking  intensely  on  the  problems 
that  he  did  see  before  him,  and  in  his  silent  way  keenly 
sensitive  on  most  of  the  points  on  which  it  is  well  to  be 
sensitive.  His  friends  reckoned  up  the  very  few  occa- 
sions on  which  he  was  ever  seen  to  be  angry;  only  one 
could  be  recalled  on  which  he  was  angry  on  his  own  ac- 
count; the  cruelty  of  a  driver  to  animals  in  his  supply 
train,  heartless  neglect  in  carrying  out  the  arrangements 
he  had  made  for  the  comfort  of  the  sick  and  wounded, 
these  were  the  sort  of  occasions  which  broke  down 
Grant's  habitual  self-possession  and  good  temper.  "  He 
was  never  too  anxious,"  wrote  Chaplain  Eaton,  who, 
having  been  set  by  him  in  charge  of  the  negro  refugees 
with  his  army,  had  excellent  means  of  judging,  "  never 
too  preoccupied  with  the  great  problems  that  beset  him, 
to  take  a  sincere  and  humane  interest  in  the  welfare  of 
the  most  subordinate  labourer  dependent  upon  him." 
And  he  had  delicacy  of  feeling  in  other  ways.  Once  in 
the  crowd  at  some  hotel,  in  which  he  mingled  an  undis- 
tinguished figure,  an  old  officer  under  him  tried  on  a 
lecherous  story  for  the  entertainment  of  the  General,  who 
did  not  look  the  sort  of  man  to  resent  it;  Grant,  who  did 
not  wish  to  set  down  an  older  man  roughly,  and  had  no 
ready  phrases,  but  had,  as  it  happens,  a  sensitive  skin, 
was  observed  to  blush  to  the  roots  of  his  hair  in  exquisite 
discomfort.  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  little  recorded 
traits  of  this  somewhat  unexpected  kind,  which  give  grace 
to  the  memory  of  his  determination  in  a  duty  which  be- 
came very  grim. 

The  simplicity  of  character  as  well  as  manner  which 
endeared  him  to  a  few  close  associates  was  probably  a 
very  poor  equipment  for  the  Presidency,  which,  from 
that  very  simplicity,  he  afterwards  treated  as  his  due; 
and  Grant  presented  in  some  ways  as  great  a  contrast  as 
can  be  imagined  to  the  large  and  complex  mind  of  Lin- 


348  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

coin.  But  he  was  the  man  that  Lincoln  had  yearned  for. 
Whatever  degree  of  military  skill  may  be  ascribed  to  him, 
he  had  in  the  fullest  measure  the  moral  attributes  of  a 
commander.  The  sense  that  the  war  could  be  put  through 
and  must  be  put  through  possessed  his  soul.  He  was  in- 
susceptible to  personal  danger — at  least,  so  observers 
said,  though  he  himself  told  a  different  story — and  he 
taught  himself  to  keep  a  quiet  mind  in  the  presence  of 
losses,  rout  in  battle,  or  failure  in  a  campaign.  It  was 
said  that  he  never  troubled  himself  with  fancies  as  to 
what  the  enemy  might  be  doing,  and  he  confessed  to 
having  constantly  told  himself  that  the  enemy  was  as 
much  afraid  of  him  as  he  of  the  enemy.  His  military 
talent  was  doubled  in  efficacy  by  his  indomitable  con- 
stancy. In  one  sense,  moreover,  and  that  a  wholly  good 
sense,  he  was  a  political  general;  for  he  had  constantly 
before  his  mind  the  aims  of  the  Government  which  em- 
ployed him,  perceiving  early  that  there  were  only  two 
possible  ends  to  the  war,  the  complete  subjugation  of  the 
South  or  the  complete  failure  of  the  Union;  perceiving 
also  that  there  was  no  danger  of  exhausting  the  resources 
of  the  North  and  great  danger  of  discouraging  its  spirit, 
while  the  position  of  the  South  was  in  this  respect  the 
precise  contrary.  He  was  therefore  the  better  able  to 
serve  the  State  as  a  soldier,  because  throughout  he  meas- 
ured by  a  just  standard  the  ulterior  good  or  harm  of 
success  or  failure  in  his  enterprises. 

The  affectionate  confidence  which  existed  between  Lee 
and  "  Stonewall  "  Jackson  till  the  latter  was  killed  at 
Chancellorsville  had  a  parallel  in  the  endearing  friend- 
ship which  sprung  up  between  Grant  and  his  principal 
subordinate,  William  T.  Sherman,  who  was  to  bear  a 
hardly  less  momentous  part  than  his  own  in  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  war.  Sherman  was  a  man  of  quick  wits  and 
fancy,  bright  and  mercurial  disposition,  capable  of  being 
a  delightful  companion  to  children,  and  capable  of  being 
sharp  and  inconsiderate  to  duller  subordinates.  It 
is  a  high  tribute  both  to  this  brilliant  soldier  and  to 
Grant  himself  that  he  always  regarded  Grant  as  hav- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  349 

ing  made   him,   not  only  by  his  confidence  but  by  his 
example. 

As  has  been  said,  Grant  was  required  to  remain  on  the 
defensive  between  Memphis  and  Corinth,  which  mark 
the  line  of  the  Northern  frontier  at  this  period,  while 
Buell  was  advancing  on  Chattanooga.  Later,  while  the 
Confederates  were  invading  Kentucky  further  east,  at- 
tacks were  also  directed  against  Grant  to  keep  him  quiet. 
These  were  defeated,  though  Grant  was  unable  to  follow 
up  his  success  at  the  time.  When  the  invasion  of  Ken- 
tucky had  collapsed  and  the  Confederates  under  Bragg 
were  retreating  before  Buell  and  his  successor  out  of 
Middle  Tennessee,  it  became  possible  for  Grant  and  for 
Halleck  and  the  Government  at  Washington  to  look  to 
completing  the  conquest  of  the  Mississippi  River.  The 
importance  to  the  Confederates  of  a  hold  upon  the 
Mississippi  has  been  pointed  out;  if  it  were  lost  the  whole 
of  far  South-West  would  manifestly  be  lost  with  it;  in  the 
North,  on  the  other  hand,  public  sentiment  was  strongly 
set  upon  freeing  the  navigation  of  the  great  river.  The 
Confederacy  now  held  the  river  from  the  fortress  of 
Vicksburg,  which  after  taking  New  Orleans  Admiral 
Farragut  had  attacked  in  vain,  down  to  Port  Hudson, 
1 20  miles  further  south,  where  the  Confederate  forces 
had  since  then  seized  and  fortified  another  point  of 
vantage.  Vicksburg,  it  will  be  observed,  lies  175  to  180 
miles  south  of  Memphis,  or  from  Grand  Junction,  be- 
tween Memphis  and  Corinth,  the  points  in  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  North  which  must  serve  Grant  as  a  base.  At 
Vicksburg  itself,  and  for  some  distance  south  of  it,  a  line 
of  bluffs  or  steep-sided  hills  lying  east  of  the  Mississippi 
comes  right  up  to  the  edge  of  the  river.  The  river  as  it 
approaches  these  bluffs  makes  a  sudden  bend  to  the  north- 
east and  then  again  to  the  south-west,  so  that  two  suc- 
cessive reaches  of  the  stream,  each  from  three  to  four 
miles  long,  were  commanded  by  the  Vicksburg  guns,  200 
feet  above  the  valley;  the  eastward  or  landward  side  of 
the  fortress  was  also  well  situated  for  defence.  To  the 
north  of  Vicksburg  the  country  on  the  east  side  of  the 


350  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mississippi  is  cut  up  by  innumerable  streams  and 
"  bayous  "  or  marshy  creeks,  winding  and  intersecting 
amid  a  dense  growth  of  cedars.  The  North,  with  a 
flotilla  under  Admiral  Porter,  commanded  the  Mississippi 
itself,  and  the  Northern  forces  could  freely  move  along 
its  western  shore  to  the  impregnable  river  face  of  Vicks- 
burg  beyond.  But  the  question  of  how  to  get  safely  to 
the  assailable  side  of  Vicksburg  presented  formidable 
difficulty  to  Grant  and  to  the  Government. 

Grant's  operations  began  in  November,  1862.  Ad- 
vancing directly  southward  along  the  railway  from  Mem- 
phis with  the  bulk  of  his  forces,  he  after  a  while  detached 
Sherman  with  a  force  which  proceeded  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo,  a  little  north-west  of 
Vicksburg.  Here  Sherman  was  to  land,  and,  it  was 
hoped,  surprise  the  enemy  at  Vicksburg  itself  while  the 
bulk  of  the  enemy's  forces  were  fully  occupied  by  Grant's 
advance  from  the  north.  But  Grant's  lengthening  com- 
munications were  cut  up  by  a  cavalry  raid,  and  he  had  to 
retreat,  while  Sherman  came  upon  an  enemy  fully  pre- 
pared and  sustained  a  defeat  a  fortnight  after  Burnside's 
defeat  at  Fredericksburg.  This  was  the  first  of  a  long 
series  of  failures  during  which  Grant,  who  for  his  part 
was  conspicuously  frank  and  loyal  in  his  relations  with 
the  Government,  received  upon  the  whole  the  fullest  con- 
fidence and  support  from  them.  There  occurred,  how- 
ever, about  this  time  an  incident  which  was  trying  to 
Grant,  and  of  which  the  very  simple  facts  must  be  stated, 
since  it  was  the  last  of  the  occasions  upon  which  severe 
criticism  of  Lincoln's  military  administration  has  been 
founded.  General  McClernand  was  an  ambitious  Illinois 
lawyer-politician  of  energy  and  courage;  he  was  an  old 
acquaintance  of  Lincoln's,  and  an  old  opponent;  since  the 
death  of  Douglas  he  and  another  lawyer-politician, 
Logan,  had  been  the  most  powerful  of  the  Democrats  in 
Illinois;  both  were  zealous  in  the  war  and  had  joined  the 
Army  upon  its  outbreak.  Logan  served  as  a  general 
under  Grant  with  confessed  ability.  It  must  be  repeated 
that,  North  and  South,  former  civilians  had  to  be  placed 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  351 

in  command  for  lack  of  enough  soldiers  of  known 
capacity  to  go  round,  and  that  many  of  them,  like  Logan 
and  like  the  Southern  general,  Polk,  who  was  a  bishop 
in  the  American  Episcopal  Church,  did  very  good  service. 
McClernand  had  early  obtained  high  rank  and  had  shown 
no  sign  as  yet  of  having  less  aptitude  for  his  new  career 
than  other  men  of  similar  antecedents.  Grant,  however, 
distrusted  him,  and  proved  to  be  right.  In  October, 
1862,  McClernand  came  to  Lincoln  with  an  offer  of  his 
personal  services  in  raising  troops  from  Illinois,  Indiana, 
and  Iowa,  with  a  special  view  to  clearing  the  Mississippi. 
He  of  course  expected  to  be  himself  employed  in  this 
operation.  Recruiting  was  at  a  low  ebb,  and  it  would 
have  been  folly  to  slight  this  offer.  McClernand  did  in 
fact  raise  volunteers  to  the  number  of  a  whole  army 
corps.  He  was  placed  under  Grant  in  command  of  the 
expedition  down  the  Mississippi  which  had  already 
started  under  Sherman.  Sherman's  great  promise  had 
not  yet  been  proved  to  any  one  but  Grant;  he  appears  at 
this  time  to  have  come  under  the  disapproval  of  the  Joint 
Committee  of  Congress  on  the  War,  and  the  newspaper 
Press  had  not  long  before  announced,  with  affected  re- 
gret, the  news  that  he  had  become  insane.  McClernand, 
arriving  just  after  Sherman's  defeat  near  Vicksburg,  fell 
in  at  once  with  a  suggestion  of  his  to  attack  the  Post  of 
Arkansas,  a  Confederate  stronghold  in  the  State  of 
Arkansas  and  upon  the  river  of  that  name,  from  the 
shelter  of  which  Confederate  gunboats  had  some  chance 
of  raiding  the  Mississippi  above  Vicksburg.  The  expe- 
dition succeeded  in  this  early  in  January,  1863,  and  was 
then  recalled  to  join  Grant.  This  was  a  mortification  to 
McClernand,  who  had  hoped  for  a  command  independent 
of  Grant.  In  his  subsequent  conduct  he  seems  to  have 
shown  incapacity;  he  was  certainly  insubordinate  to  Grant, 
and  he  busied  himself  in  intrigues  against  him,  with  such 
result  as  will  soon  be  seen.  As  soon  as  Grant  told  the 
Administration  that  he  was  dissatisfied  with  McClernand, 
he  was  assured  that  he  was  at  liberty  to  remove  him  from 


352  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

command.  This  he  eventually  did  after  some  months 
of  trial. 

In  the  first  three  months  of  1863,  while  the  army  of 
the  Potomac,  shattered  at  Fredericksburg,  was  being  pre- 
pared for  the  fresh  attack  upon  Lee  which  ended  at 
Chancellorsville,  and  while  Bragg  and  Rosecrans  lay  con- 
fronting each  other  in  Middle  Tennessee,  each  content 
that  the  other  was  afraid  to  weaken  himself  by  sending 
troops  to  the  Mississippi,  Grant  was  occupied  in  a  series 
of  enterprises  apparently  more  cautious  than  that  in 
which  he  eventually  succeeded,  but  each  in  its  turn  futile. 
An  attempt  was  made  to  render  Vicksburg  useless  by  a 
canal  cutting  across  the  bend  of  the  Mississippi  to  the 
west  of  that  fortress.  Then  Grant  endeavoured  with  the 
able  co-operation  of  Admiral  Porter  and  his  flotilla  to 
secure  a  safe  landing  on  the  Yazoo,  which  enters  the 
Mississippi  a  little  above  Vicksburg,  so  that  he  could 
move  his  army  to  the  rear  of  Vicksburg  by  this  route. 
Next  Grant  and  Porter  tried  to  establish  a  sure  line  of 
water  communication  from  a  point  far  up  the  Mississippi 
through  an  old  canal,  then  somehow  obstructed,  into  the 
upper  waters  of  the  Yazoo  and  so  to  a  point  on  that 
river  30  or  40  miles  to  the  north-east  of  Vicksburg,  by 
which  they  would  have  turned  the  right  of  the  main  Con' 
federate  Wrce;  but  this  was  frustrated  by  the  Confed- 
erates, who  succeeded  in  establishing  a  strong  fort  further 
up  the  Yazoo.  Yet  a  further  effort  was  made  to  estab- 
lish a  waterway  by  a  canal  quitting  the  Mississippi  about 
40  miles  north  of  Vicksburg  and  communicating,  through 
lakes,  bayous,  and  smaller  rivers,  with  its  great  tributary 
the  Red  River  far  to  the  south.  This,  like  the  first  canal 
attempted,  would  have  rendered  Vicksburg  useless. 

Each  of  these  projects  failed  in  turn.  The  tedious 
engineering  work  which  two  of  them  involved  was  ren- 
dered more  depressing  by  adverse  conditions  of  weather 
and  by  ill-health  among  Grant's  men.  Natural  grumbling 
among  the  troops  was  repeated  and  exaggerated  in  the 
North.  McClernand  employed  the  gift  for  intrigue, 
which  perhaps  had  helped  him  to  secure  his  command,  in 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  353 

an  effort  to  get  Grant  removed.  It  is  melancholy  to  add 
that  a  good  many  newspapers  at  this  time  began  to  print 
statements  that  Grant  had  again  taken  to  drink.  It  is 
certain  that  he  was  at  this  time  a  total  abstainer.  It  is 
said  that  he  had  offended  the  authors  of  this  villainy  by 
the  restrictions  which  he  had  long  before  found  neces- 
sary to  put  upon  information  to  the  Press.  Some  of  the 
men  freely  confessed  afterwards  that  they  had  been  con- 
vinced of  his  sobriety,  and  added  the  marvellous  apology 
that  their  business  was  to  give  the  public  "  the  news." 
Able  and  more  honest  journalists  urged  that  Grant  had 
proved  his  incompetence.  Secretary  Chase  took  up  their 
complaints  and  pressed  that  Grant  should  be  removed. 
Lincoln,  before  the  outcry  against  Grant  had  risen  to  its 
height,  had  felt  the  need  of  closer  information  than  he 
possessed  about  the  situation  on  the  Mississippi;  and 
had  hit  upon  the  happy  expedient  of  sending  an  able 
official  of  the  War  Department,  who  deserved  and  ob- 
tained the  confidence  of  Grant  and  his  officers,  to  accom- 
pany the  Western  army  and  report  to  him.  Apart,  how- 
ever, from  the  reports  he  thus  received,  he  had  always 
treated  the  attacks  on  Grant  with  contempt.  "  I  cannot 
spare  this  general;  he  fights,"  he  said.  In  reply  to  com- 
plaints that  Grant  drank,  he  enquired  (adapting,  as  he 
knew,  George  II. 's  famous  saying  about  Wolfe)  what 
whisky  he  drank,  explaining  that  he  wished  to  send  bar- 
rels of  it  to  some  of  his  other  generals.  His  attitude  is 
remarkable,  because  in  his  own  mind  he  had  not  thought 
well  of  any  of  Grant's  plans  after  his  first  failure  in 
December;  he  had  himself  wished  from  an  early  day 
that  Grant  would  take  the  very  course  by  which  he  ulti- 
mately succeeded.  He  let  him  go  his  own  way,  as  he 
afterwards  told  him,  from  "  a  general  hope  that  you 
know  better  than  I." 

At  the  end  of  March  Grant  took  a  memorable  deter- 
mination to  transfer  his  whole  force  to  the  south  of 
Vicksburg  and  approach  it  from  that  direction.  He  was 
urged  by  Sherman  to  give  up  any  further  attempt  to  use 
the  river,  and,  instead,  to  bring  his  whole  army  back  to 


354  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Memphis  and  begin  a  necessarily  slow  approach  on  Vicks- 
burg  by  the  railway.  He  declared  himself  that  on  ordi- 
nary grounds  of  military  prudence  this  would  have  been 
the  proper  course,  but  he  decided  for  himself  that  the 
depressing  effect  of  the  retreat  to  Memphis  would  be 
politically  disastrous.  At  Grand  Gulf,  30  miles  south  of 
Vicksburg,  the  South  possessed  another  fortified  post  on 
the  river;  to  reach  this  Grant  required  the  help  of  the 
Navy,  not  only  in  crossing  from  the  western  bank  of  the 
river,  but  in  transporting  the  supplies  for  which  the  roads 
west  of  the  river  were  inadequate.  Admiral  Porter,  with 
his  gunboats  and  laden  barges,  successfully  ran  the  gaunt- 
let of  the  Vicksburg  batteries  by  night  without  serious 
damage.  Grand  Gulf  was  taken  on  May  3,  and  Grant's 
army  established  at  this  new  base.  A  further  doubt 
now  arose.  General  Banks  in  Louisiana  was  at  this  time 
preparing  to  besiege  Port  Hudson.  It  might  be  well  for 
Grant  to  go  south  and  join  him,  and,  after  reducing  Port 
Hudson,  return  with  Banks'  forces  against  Vicksburg. 
This  was  what  now  commended  itself  to  Lincoln..  In 
the  letter  of  congratulation  which  some  time  later  he  was 
able  to  send  to  Grant,  after  referring  to  his  former 
opinion  which  had  been  right,  he  confessed  that  he  had 
now  been  wrong.  Banks  was  not  yet  ready  to  move,  and 
Vicksburg,  now  seriously  threatened,  might  soon  be  re- 
inforced. Orders  to  join  Banks,  though  they  were  prob- 
ably meant  to  be  discretionary,  were  actually  sent  to 
Grant,  but  too  late.  He  had  cut  himself  loose  from  his 
base  at  Grand  Gulf  and  marched  his  troops  north,  to  live 
with  great  hardship  to  themselves  on  the  country  and  the 
supplies  they  could  take  with  them.  He  had  with  him 
35,000  men.  General  Pemberton,  to  whom  he  had  so 
far  been  opposed,  lay  covering  Vicksburg  with  20,000 
and  a  further  force  in  the  city;  Joseph  Johnston,  whom 
he  afterwards  described  as  the  Southern  general  who  in 
all  the  war  gave  him  most  trouble,  had  been  sent  by 
Jefferson  Davis  to  take  supreme  command  in  the  West, 
and  had  collected  11,000  men  at  Jackson,  the  capital  of 
Mississippi,  45  miles  east  of  Vicksburg.  Grant  was  able 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  355 

to  take  his  enemy  in  detail.  Having  broken  up  Johnston's 
force  he  defeated  Pemberton  in  a  series  of  battles.  His 
victory  at  Champion's  Hill  on  May  16,  not  a  fortnight 
after  Chancellorsville,  conveyed  to  his  mind  the  assurance 
that  the  North  would  win  the  war.  An  assault  on  Vicks- 
burg  failed  with  heavy  loss.  Pemberton  was  at  last 
closely  invested  in  Vicksburg  and  Grant  could  establish 
safe  communications  with  the  North  by  way  of  the  lower 
Yazoo  and  up  the  Mississippi  above  its  mouth.  There 
had  been  dissension  between  Pemberton  and  Johnston, 
who,  seeing  that  gunboats  proved  able  to  pass  Vicksburg 
in  any  case,  thought  that  Pemberton,  whom  he  could  not 
at  the  moment  hope  to  relieve,  should  abandon  Vicks- 
burg and  try  to  save  his  army.  Long  before  Johnston 
could  be  sufficiently  reinforced  to  attack  Grant,  Grant's 
force  had  been  raised  to  71,000.  On  July  4,  1863,  the 
day  of  the  annual  commemoration  of  national  inde- 
pendence, Vicksburg  was  surrendered.  Its  garrison,  who 
had  suffered  severely,  were  well  victualled  by  Grant  and 
allowed  to  go  free  on  parole.  Pemberton  in  his  vexation 
treated  Grant  with  peculiar  insolence,  which  provoked  a 
singular  exhibition  of  the  conqueror's  good  temper  to 
him;  and  in  his  despatches  to  the  President,  Grant  men- 
tioned nothing  with  greater  pride  than  the  absence  of  a 
word  or  a  sign  on  the  part  of  his  men  which  could  hurt 
the  feelings  of  the  fallen.  Johnston  was  forced  to  aban- 
don the  town  of  Jackson  with  its  large  stores  to  Sherman, 
but  could  not  be  pursued  in  his  retreat.  On  July  9,  five 
days  later,  the  defender  of  Port  Hudson,  invested  shortly 
before  by  Banks,  who  had  not  force  enough  for  an  assault, 
heard  the  news  of  Vicksburg  and  surrendered.  Lincoln 
could  now  boast  to  the  North  that  "  the  Father  of  Waters 
again  goes  unvexed  to  the  sea." 

At  the  very  hour  when  Vicksburg  was  surrendered 
Lincoln  had  been  issuing  the  news  of  another  victory  won 
in  the  preceding  three  days,  which,  along  with  the  cap- 
ture of  Vicksburg,  marked  the  turning  point  of  the  war. 
For  more  than  a  month  after  the  battle  of  Chancellors- 
ville the  two  opposing  armies  in  the  East  had  lain  inac- 


356  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tive.  The  Conscription  Law,  with  which  we  must  deal 
later,  had  recently  been  passed,  and  various  elements  of 
discontent  and  disloyalty  in  the  North  showed  a  great 
deal  of  activity.  It  seems  that  Jefferson  Davis  at  first 
saw  no  political  advantage  in  the  military  risk  of  invad- 
ing the  North.  Lee  thought  otherwise,  and  was  eager 
to  follow  up  his  success.  At  last,  early  in  June,  1863, 
he  started  northward.  This  time  he  aimed  at  the  great 
industrial  regions  of  Pennsylvania,  hoping  also  while 
assailing  them  to  draw  Hooker  further  from  Washing- 
ton. Hooker,  on  first  learning  that  Lee  had  crossed  the 
Rappahannock,  entertained  the  thought  of  himself  going 
south  of  it  and  attacking  Richmond.  Lincoln  dissuaded 
him,  since  he  might  be  "  entangled  upon  the  river,  like 
an  ox  jumped  half  over  a  fence";  he  could  not  take 
Richmond  for  weeks,  and  his  communications  might  be 
cut;  besides,  Lincoln  added,  his  true  objective  point 
throughout  was  Lee's  army  and  not  Richmond.  Hooker's 
later  movements,  in  conformity  with  what  he  could  gather 
of  Lee's  movements,  were  prudent  and  skilful.  He  re- 
jected a  later  suggestion  of  Lincoln's  that  he  should  strike 
quickly  at  the  most  assailable  point  in  Lee's  lengthening 
line  of  communications,  and  he  was  wise,  for  Lee  could 
live  on  the  country  he  was  traversing,  and  Hooker  now 
aimed  at  covering  Philadelphia  or  Baltimore  and  Wash- 
ington, according  to  the  direction  which  Lee  might  take, 
watching  all  the  while  for  the  moment  to  strike.  He 
found  himself  hampered  in  some  details  by  probably  in- 
judicious orders  of  his  superior,  Halleck,  and  became 
irritable  and  querulous;  Lincoln  had  to  exercise  his  sim- 
ple arts  to  keep  him  to  his  duty  and  to  soothe  him,  and 
was  for  the  moment  successful.  Suddenly  on  June  27, 
with  a  battle  in  near  prospect,  Hooker  sent  in  his  resigna- 
tion; probably  he  meant  it,  but  there  was  no  time  to 
debate  the  matter.  Probably  he  had  lost  confidence  in 
himself,  as  he  did  before  at  Chancellorsville.  Lincoln 
evidently  judged  that  his  state  of  mind  made  it  wise  to 
accept  this  resignation.  He  promptly  appointed  in 
Hooker's  place  one  of  his  subordinates,  General  George 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  357 

Meade,  a  lean,  tall,  studious,  somewhat  sharp-tongued 
man,  not  brilliant  or  popular  or  the  choice  that  the  army 
would  have  expected,  but  with  a  record  in  previous  cam- 
paigns which  made  him  seem  to  Lincoln  trustworthy,  as 
he  was.  A  subordinate  command  in  which  he  could 
really  distinguish  himself  was  later  found  for  Hooker, 
who  now  took  leave  of  his  army  in  words  of  marked 
generosity  towards  Meade.  All  this  while  there  was  great 
excitement  in  the  North.  Urgent  demands  had  been 
raised  for  the  recall  of  McClellan,  a  course  of  which, 
Lincoln  justly  observed,  no  one  could  measure  the  incon- 
venience so  well  as  he. 

Lee  was  now  feeling  his  way,  somewhat  in  the  dark  as 
to  his  enemy's  movements,  because  he  had  despatched 
most  of  his  cavalry  upon  raiding  expeditions  towards  the 
important  industrial  centre  of  Harrisburg.  Meade  con- 
tinued on  a  parallel  course  to  Jaim,  with  his  army  spread 
out  to  guard  against  any  movements  of  Lee's  to  the  east- 
ward. Each  commander  would  have  preferred  to  fight 
the  other  upon  the  defensive.  Suddenly  on  July  I,  three 
days  after  Meade  had  taken  command,  a  chance  collision 
took  place  north  of  the  town  of  Gettysburg  between  the 
advance  guards  of  the  two  armies.  It  developed  into  a 
general  engagement,  of  which  the  result  must  partly  de- 
pend on  the  speed  with  which  each  commander  could 
bring  up  the  remainder  of  his  army.  On  the  first  day 
Lee  achieved  a  decided  success.  The  Northern  troops 
were  driven  back  upon  steep  heights  just  south  of  Gettys- 
burg, of  which  the  contour  made  it  difficult  for  the  enemy 
to  co-ordinate  his  movements  in  any  attack  on  them. 
Here  Meade,  who  when  the  battle  began  was  ten  miles 
away  and  did  not  expect  it,  was  able  by  the  morning  of 
the  2nd  or  during  that  day  to  bring  up  his  full  force ;  and 
here,  contrary  to  his  original  choice  of  a  position  for 
bringing  on  a  battle,  he  made  his  stand.  The  attack 
planned  by  Lee  on  the  following  day  must,  in  his  opinion, 
afterwards  have  been  successful  if  "  Stonewall  "  Jackson 
had  been  alive  and  with  him.  As  it  was,  his  most  brilliant 
remaining  subordinate,  Longstreet,  disapproved  of  any 


358  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

assault,  and  on  this  and  the  following  day  obeyed  his 
orders  reluctantly  and  too  slowly.  On  July  3,  1863,  Lee 
renewed  his  attack.  In  previous  battles  the  Northern 
troops  had  been  contending  with  invisible  enemies  in 
woods;  now,  after  a  heavy  cannonade,  the  whole  South- 
ern line  could  be  seen  advancing  in  the  open  to  a  desper- 
ate assault.  This  attack  was  crushed  by  the  Northern 
fire.  First  and  last  in  the  fighting  round  Gettysburg  the 
North  lost  23,000  out  of  about  93,000  men,  and  the 
South  about  an  equal  number  out  of  78,000.  The  net 
result  was  that,  after  a  day's  delay,  Lee  felt  compelled  to 
retreat.  Nothing  but  an  actual  victory  would  have  made 
it  wise  for  him  to  persist  in  his  adventurous  invasion. 

The  importance  of  this,  which  has  been  remembered  as 
the  chief  battle  of  the  war,  must  be  estimated  rather  by 
the  peril  from  which  the  North  was  delivered  than  by  the 
results  it  immediately  reaped.  Neither  on  July  3  nor 
during  Lee's  subsequent  retreat  did  Meade  follow  up  his 
advantage  with  the  boldness  to  which  Lincoln,  in  the 
midst  of  his  congratulations,  exhorted  him.  On  July  12 
Lee  recrossed  the  Potomac.  Meade  on  the  day  before 
had  thought  of  attacking  him,  but  desisted  on  the  advice 
of  the  majority  in  a  council  of  war.  That  council  of 
war,  as  Lincoln  said,  should  never  have  been  held.  Its 
decision  was  demonstrably  wrong,  since  it  rested  on  the 
hope  that  Lee  would  himself  attack.  Lincoln  writhed 
at  a  phrase  in  Meade's  general  orders  about  "  driving  the 
invader  from  our  soil."  "  Will  our  generals,"  he  ex- 
claimed in  private,  "  never  get  that  idea  out  of  their 
heads?  The  whole  country  is  our  soil."  Meade,  how- 
ever, unlike  McClellan,  was  only  cautious,  not  lukewarm, 
nor  without  a  mind  of  his  own.  The  army  opposed  to 
him  was  much  larger  than  that  which  McClellan  failed 
to  overwhelm  after  Antietam.  He  had  offered  to  resign 
when  he  inferred  Lincoln's  dissatisfaction  from  a  tele- 
gram. Lincoln  refused  this,  and  made  it  clear  through 
another  officer  that  his  strong  opinion  as  to  what  might 
have  been  done  did  not  imply  ingratitude  or  want  of 
confidence  towards  "  a  brave  and  skilful  officer,  and  a 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  359 

true  man."  Characteristically  he  relieved  his  sense  of 
Meade's  omissions  in  a  letter  of  most  lucid  criticism,  and 
characteristically  he  never  sent  it.  Step  by  step  Meade 
moved  on  Lee's  track  into  the  enemy's  country.  Inde- 
cisive manoeuvres  on  both  sides  continued  over  four 
months.  Lee  was  forced  over  the  Rappahannock,  then 
over  the  Rapidan;  Meade  followed  him,  found  his  army 
in  peril,  and  prudently  and  promptly  withdrew.  In 
December  the  two  armies  went  into  winter  quarters  on 
the  two  sides  of  the  Rappahannock  to  await  the  opening 
of  a  very  different  campaign  when  the  next  spring  was 
far  advanced. 

The  autumn  months  of  1863  witnessed  in  the  .Middle 
West  a  varying  conflict  ending  in  a  Northern  victory 
hardly  less  memorable  than  those  of  Gettysburg  and 
Vicksburg.  At  last,  after  the  fall  of  Vicksburg,  Rose- 
crans  in  Middle  Tennessee  found  himself  ready  to  ad- 
vance. By  skilful  manoeuvres,  in  the  difficult  country 
where  the  Tennessee  River  cuts  the  Cumberland  moun- 
tains and  the  parallel  ranges  which  run  from  north-east 
to  south-west  behind,  he  turned  the  flank  of  Bragg's  posi- 
tion at  Chattanooga  and  compelled  him  to  evacuate  that 
town  in  the  beginning  of  September.  Bragg,  as  he  re- 
treated, succeeded  in  getting  false  reports  as  to  his  move- 
ments and  the  condition  of  his  army  conveyed  to  Rose- 
crans,  who  accordingly  followed  him  up  in  an  incautious 
manner.  By  this  time  the  bulk  of  the  forces  that  had 
been  used  against  Vicksburg  should  have  been  brought 
to  support  Rosecrans.  Halleck,  however,  at  first  scat- 
tered them  for  purposes  which  he  thought  important  in 
the  West.  After  a  while,  however,  one  part  of  the  army 
at  Vicksburg  was  brought  back  to  General  Burnside  in 
Ohio,  from  whom  it  had  been  borrowed.  Burnside  ac- 
complished the  very  advance  by  Lexington,  in  Kentucky, 
over  the  mountains  into  Eastern  Tennessee,  which  Lin- 
coln had  so  long  desired  for  the  relief  of  the  Unionists 
there,  and  he  was  able  to  hold  his  ground,  defeating  at 
Knoxville  a  little  later  an  expedition  under  Longstreet 
which  was  sent  to  dislodge  him.  Other  portions  of  the 


360  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Western  army  were  at  last  ordered  to  join  Rosecrans, 
but  did  not  reach  him  before  he  had  met  with  disaster. 
For  the  Confederate  authorities,  eager  to  retrieve  their 
losses,  sent  every  available  reinforcement  to  Bragg,  and 
he  was  shortly  able  to  turn  back  towards  Chattanooga 
with  over  71,000  men  against  the  57,000  with  which 
Rosecrans,  scattering  his  troops  in  false  security,  was 
pursuing  him.  The  two  armies  came  upon  one  another, 
without  clear  expectation,  upon  the  Chicamauga  Creek 
beyond  the  ridge  which  lies  south-east  of  Chattanooga. 
The  battle  fought  among  the  woods  and  hills  by  Chica- 
mauga on  September  19  and  20  surpassed  any  other  in 
the  war  in  the  heaviness  of  the  loss  on  each  side.  On 
the  second  day  Bragg' s  manoeuvres  broke  Rosecrans'  line, 
and  only  an  extraordinarily  gallant  stand  by  Thomas 
with  a  part  of  the  line,  in  successive  positions  of  retreat, 
prevented  Bragg  from  turning  the  hasty  retirement  of 
the  remainder  into  a  disastrous  rout.  As  it  was,  Rose- 
crans made  good  his  retreat  to  Chattanooga,  but  there 
he  was  in  danger  of  being  completely  cut  off.  A  corps 
was  promptly  detached  from  Meade  in  Virginia,  placed 
under  Hooker,  and  sent  to  relieve  him.  Rosecrans,  who 
in  a  situation  of  real  difficulty  seems  to  have  had  no  re- 
sourcefulness, was  replaced  in  his  command  by  Thomas. 
Grant  was  appointed  to  supreme  command  of  all  the 
forces  in  the  West  and  ordered  to  Chattanooga.  There, 
after  many  intricate  operations  on  either  side,  a  great 
battle  was  eventually  fought  on  November  24  and  25, 
1863.  Grant  had  about  60,000  men;  Bragg,  who  had 
detached  Longstreet  for  his  vain  attack  on  Burnside,  had 
only  33,000,  but  he  had  one  steep  and  entrenched  ridge 
behind  another  on  which  to  stand.  The  fight  was  marked 
by  notable  incidents — Hooker's  "  battle  above  the 
clouds  " ;  and  the  impulse  by  which  apparently  with  no 
word  of  command,  Thomas'  corps,  tired  of  waiting 
while  Sherman  advanced  upon  the  one  flank  and  Hooker 
upon  the  other,  arose  and  carried  a  ridge  which  the 
enemy  and  Grant  himself  had  regarded  as  impregnable. 
It  ended  in  a  rout  of  the  Confederates,  which  was  ener- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  361 

getically  followed  up.  Bragg's  army  was  broken  and 
driven  right  back  into  Georgia.  To  sum  up  the  events  of 
the  year,  the  one  serious  invasion  of  the  North  by  the 
South  had  failed,  and  the  dominion  on  which  the  Con- 
federacy had  any  real  hold  was  now  restricted  to  the 
Atlantic  States,  Alabama,  and  a  part  of  the  State  of 
Mississippi. 

At  this  point,  at  which  the  issue  of  the  war,  if  it  were 
only  pursued,  could  not  be  doubted,  and  at  which,  as  it 
happens,  the  need  of  Lincoln's  personal  intervention  in 
military  matters  became  greatly  diminished,  we  may  try 
to  obtain  a  general  impression  of  his  wisdom,  or  want  of 
it,  in  such  affairs.  The  closeness  and  keen  intelligence 
with  which  he  followed  the  war  is  undoubted,  but  could 
only  be  demonstrated  by  a  lengthy  accumulation  of  evi- 
dence. The  larger  strategy  of  the  North,  sound  in  the 
main,  was  of  course  the  product  of  more  than  one  co- 
operating mind,  but  as  his  was  undoubtedly  the  dominant 
will  of  his  Administration,  so  too  it  seems  likely  that, 
with  his  early  and  sustained  grasp  of  the  general  prob- 
lem, he  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  clearness  and  con- 
sistency of  the  strategical  plans.  The  amount  of  the 
forces  raised  was  for  long,  as  we  shall  see  later,  beyond 
his  control,  and,  in  the  distribution  of  what  he  had  to  the 
best  effect,  his  own  want  of  knowledge  and  the  poor  judg- 
ment of  his  earlier  advisers  seem  to  have  caused  some 
errors.  He  started  with  the  evident  desire  to  put  him- 
self almost  unreservedly  in  the  hands  of  the  competent 
military  counsellors,  and  he  was  able  in  the  end  to  do 
so ;  but  for  a  long  intermediate  period,  as  we  have  seen, 
he  was  compelled  as  a  responsible  statesman  to  forego  this 
wish.  It  was  all  that  time  his  function  first  to  pick  out, 
with  very  little  to  go  by,  the  best  officers  he  could  find, 
replacing  them  with  better  when  he  could;  and  secondly 
to  give  them  just  so  much  direction,  and  no  more,  as  his 
wisdom  at  a  distance  and  their  more  expert  skill  upon 
the  spot  made  proper.  In  each  of  these  respects  his 
occasional  mistakes  are  plain  enough,  but  the  evidence, 
upon  which  he  has  often  been  thought  capable  of  setting 


362  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

aside  sound  military  considerations  causelessly  or  in  obe- 
dience to  interested  pressure,  breaks  down  when  the  facts 
of  any  imputed  instance  are  known.  It  is  manifest  that 
he  gained  rapidly  both  in  knowledge  of  the  men  he  dealt 
with  and  in  the  firm  kindness  with  which  he  treated  them. 
It  is  remarkable  that,  with  his  ever-burning  desire  to  see 
vigour  and  ability  displayed,  he  could  watch  so  constantly 
as  he  did  for  the  precise  opportunity  or  the  urgent  neces- 
sity before  he  made  changes  in  command.  It  is  equally 
remarkable  that,  with  his  decided  and  often  right  views 
as  to  what  should  be  done,  his  advice  was  always  offered 
with  equal  deference  and  plainness.  "  Quite  possibly  I 
was  wrong  both  then  and  now,"  he  once  wrote  to  Hooker, 
"  but  in  the  great  responsibility  resting  upon  me,  I  cannot 
be  entirely  silent.  Now,  all  I  ask  is  that  you  will  be  in 
such  mood  that  we  can  get  into  action  the  best  cordial 
judgment  of  yourself  and  General  Halleck,  with  my  poor 
mite  added,  if  indeed  he  and  you  shall  think  it  entitled 
to  any  consideration  at  all."  The  man  whose  habitual 
attitude  was  this,  and  who  yet  could  upon  the  instant  take 
his  own  decision,  may  be  presumed  to  have  been  wise  in 
many  cases  where  we  do  not  know  his  reasons.  Few 
statesmen,  perhaps,  have  so  often  stood  waiting  and  re- 
frained themselves  from  a  firm  will  and  not  from  the 
want  of  it,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  rare  moment  of  action. 
The  passing  of  the  crisis  in  the  war  was  fittingly  com- 
memorated by  a  number  of  State  Governors  who  com- 
bined to  institute  a  National  Cemetery  upon  the  field  of 
Gettysburg.  It  was  dedicated  on  November  19,  1863. 
The  speech  of  the  occasion  was  delivered  by  Edward 
Everett,  the  accomplished  man  once  already  mentioned 
as  the  orator  of  highest  repute  in  his  day.  The  Presi- 
dent was  bidden  then  to  say  a  few  words  at  the  close. 
The  oration  with  which  for  two  hours  Everett  delighted 
his  vast  audience  charms  no  longer,  though  it  is  full  of 
graceful  sentiment  and  contains  a  very  reasonable  survey 
of  the  rights  and  wrongs  involved  in  the  war,  and  of  its 
progress  till  then.  The  few  words  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
were  such  as  perhaps  sank  deep,  but  left  his  audience 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  363 

unaware  that  a  classic  had  been  spoken  which  would  en- 
dure with  the  English  language.  The  most  literary  man 
present  was  also  Lincoln's  greatest  admirer,  young  John 
Hay.  To  him  it  seemed  that  Mr.  Everett  spoke  per- 
fectly, and  "  the  old  man  "  gracefully  for  him.  These 
were  the  few  words :  "  Four  score  and  seven  years  ago 
our  fathers  brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that 
all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a 
great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation 
so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are 
met  on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come 
to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting  place 
for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might 
live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should 
do  this.  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate — we 
cannot  consecrate — we  cannot  hallow — this  ground.  The 
brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here  have  con- 
secrated it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  to  de- 
tract. The  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember 
what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did 
here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be 
here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us — 
that  from  these  honoured  dead  we  take  increased  devo- 
tion to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  meas- 
ure of  devotion;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these 
dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people^ 
shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

2.  Conscription  and  the  Politics  of  1863. 

The  events  of  our  day  may  tempt  us  to  underestimate 
the  magnitude  of  the  American  Civil  War,  not  only  in 
respect  of  its  issues,  but  in  respect  of  the  efforts  that  were 
put  forth.  Impartial  historians  declare  that  "  no  pre- 


364  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

vious  war  had  ever  in  the  same  time  entailed  upon  the 
combatants  such  enormous  sacrifices  of  life  and  wealth." 
Even  such  battles  as  Malplaquet  had  not  rivalled  in 
carnage  the  battles  of  this  war,  and  in  the  space  of  these 
four  years  there  took  place  a  number  of  engagements — 
far  more  than  can  be  recounted  here — in  many  of  which, 
as  at  Gettysburg,  the  casualties  amounted  to  a  quarter 
of  the  whole  forces  engaged.  The  Southern  armies, 
especially  towards  the  end  of  the  war,  were  continually 
being  pitted  against  vastly  superior  numbers ;  the  North- 
ern armies,  whether  we  look  at  the  whole  war  as  one 
vast  enterprise  of  conquest  or  at  almost  any  important 
battle  save  that  of  Gettysburg,  were  as  continually  con- 
fronted with  great  obstacles  in  the  matter  of  locality  and 
position.  In  this  case,  of  a  new  and  not  much  organised 
country  unprepared  for  war,  exact  or  intelligible  figures 
as  to  losses  or  as  to  the  forces  raised  must  not  be  ex- 
pected, but,  according  to  what  seems  to  be  a  fair  esti- 
mate, the  total  deaths  on  the  Northern  and  the  Southern 
side  directly  due  to  the  war  stood  to  the  population  of 
the  whole  country  at  its  beginning  as  at  least  I  to  32.  Of 
these  deaths  about  half  occurred  on  the  Northern  and 
half  on  the  Southern  side;  this,  however,  implies  that  in 
proportion  to  its  population  the  South  lost  twice  as  heav- 
ily as  the  North. 

Neither  side  obtained  the  levies  of  men  that  it  needed 
without  resort  to  compulsion.  The  South,  in  which  this 
necessity  either  arose  more  quickly  or  was  seen  more 
readily,  had  called  up  before  the  end  of  the  war  its  whole 
available  manhood.  In  the  North  the  proportion  of 
effort  and  sacrifice  required  was  obviously  less,  and,  at 
least  at  one  critical  moment,  it  was  disastrously  under- 
estimated. A  system  of  compulsion,  to  be  used  in  default 
of  volunteering,  was  brought  into  effect  half-way  through 
the  war.  Under  this  system  there  were  in  arms  at  the 
end  of  the  war  980,000  white  Northern  soldiers,  who 
probably  stood  to  the  population  at  that  time  in  as  high 
a  proportion  as  i  to  25,  and  everything  was  in  readiness 
for  calling  up  a  vastly  greater  number  if  necessary.  After 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  365 

twenty  months  of  war,  when  the  purely  voluntary  system 
still  existed  but  was  proving  itself  inadequate  to  make 
good  the  wastage  of  the  armies,  the  number  in  arms  for 
the  North  was  860,717,  perhaps  as  much  as  I  in  27  of 
the  population  then.  It  would  be  useless  to  evade  the 
question  which  at  once  suggests  itself,  whether  the  results 
of  voluntary  enlistment  in  this  country  during  the  present 
war  have  surpassed  to  the  extent  to  which  they  undoubt- 
edly ought  to  have  surpassed  the  standard  set  by  the 
North  in  the  Civil  War.  For  th^se  two  cases  furnish  the 
only  instances  in  which  the  institution  of  voluntary  enlist- 
ment has  been  submitted  to  a  severe  test  by  Governments 
reluctant  to  abandon  it.  The  two  cases  are  of  course  not 
strictly  comparable.  Our  own  country  in  this  matter  had 
the  advantages  of  riper  organisation,  political  and  social, 
and  of  the  preparatory  education  given  it  by  the  Terri- 
torials and  by  Lord  Roberts.  The  extremity  of  the  need 
was  in  our  case  immediately  apparent;  and  the  cause  at 
issue  appealed  with  the  utmost  simplicity  and  intensity 
to  every  brave  and  to  every  gentle  nature.  In  the  North- 
ern States,  on  the  other  hand,  apart  from  all  other  con- 
siderations, there  were  certain  to  be  sections,  local,  racial, 
and  political,  upon  which  the  national  cause  could  take 
no  very  firm  hold.  That  this  was  so  proves  no  unusual 
prevalence  of  selfishness  or  of  stupidity;  and  the  apathy 
of  such  sections  of  the  people,  like  that  of  smaller  sec- 
tions in  our  own  case,  sets  in  a  brighter  light  the  devo- 
tion which  made  so  many  eager  to  give  their  all.  More- 
over, the  general  patriotism  of  the  Northern  people  is 
not  to  be  judged  by  the  failure  of  the  purely  voluntary 
system,  but  rather,  as  will  be  seen  later,  by  the  success 
of  the  system  which  succeeded  it.  There  is  in  our  case 
no  official  statement  of  the  exact  number  serving  on  any 
particular  day,  but  the  facts  which  are  published  make  it 
safe  to  conclude  that,  at  the  end  of  fifteen  months  of  war, 
when  no  compulsion  was  in  force,  the  soldiers  then  in 
service  and  drawn  from  the  United  Kingdom  alone 
amounted  to  i  in  17  of  the  population.  The  population 
in  this  case  is  one  of  which  a  smaller  proportion  are  of 


366  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

military  age  than  was  the  case  in  the  Northern  States, 
with  their  great  number  of  immigrants.  The  apparent 
effect  of  these  figures  would  be  a  good  deal  heightened 
if  it  were  possible  to  make  a  correct  addition  in  the  case 
of  each  country  for  the  numbers  killed  or  disabled  in 
war  up  to  the  dates  in  question  and  for  the  numbers  serv- 
ing afloat.  Moreover,  the  North,  when  it  was  driven  to 
abandon  the  purely  voluntary  system,  had  not  reached 
the  point  at  which  the  withdrawal  of  men  from  civil  oc- 
cupations could  have  been  regarded  among  the  people 
as  itself  a  national  danger,  or  at  which  the  Government 
was  compelled  to  deter  some  classes  from  enlisting;  new 
industries  unconnected  with  the  war  were  all  the  while 
springing  up,  and  the  production  and  export  of  foodstuffs 
were  increasing  rapidly.  For  the  reasons  which  have 
been  stated,  there  is  nothing  invidious  in  thus  answering 
an  unavoidable  question.  Judged  by  any  previous  stand- 
ard of  voluntary  national  effort,  the  North  answered  the 
test  well.  Each  of  our  related  peoples  must  look  upon 
the  rally  of  its  fathers  and  grandfathers  in  the  one  case, 
its  brothers  and  sons  in  the  other,  with  mingled  feelings 
in  which  pride  predominates,  the  most  legitimate  source 
of  pride  in  our  case  being  the  unity  of  the  Empire.  To 
each  the  question  must  present  itself  whether  the  nations, 
democratic  and  otherwise,  which  have  followed  from  the 
first,  or,  like  the  South,  have  rapidly  adopted  a  different 
principle,  have  not,  in  this  respect,  a  juster  cause  of 
pride.  In  some  of  these  countries,  by  common  and  al- 
most unquestioning  consent,  generation  after  generation 
of  youths  and  men  in  their  prime  have  held  themselves 
at  the  instant  disposal  of  their  country  if  need  should 
arise;  and,  in  the  absence  of  need  and  the  absence  of  ex- 
citement, have  contentedly  borne  the  appreciable  sacri- 
fice of  training.  With  this  it  is  surely  necessary  to  join 
a  further  question,  whether  the  compulsion  which,  under 
conscription,  the  public  imposes  on  individuals  is  com- 
parable in  its  harshness  to  the  sacrifice  and  the  conflict 
of  duties  imposed  by  the  voluntary  system  upon  the  best 
people  in  all  classes  as  such. 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  367 

From  the  manner  in  which  the  war  arose  it  will  easily 
be  understood  that  the  South  was  quicker  than  the  North 
in  shaping  its  policy  for  raising  armies.  Before  a  shot 
had  been  fired  at  Fort  Sumter,  and  when  only  seven  of 
the  ten  Southern  States  had  yet  seceded,  President  Jeffer- 
son Davis  had  at  his  command  more  than  double  the 
number  of  the  United  States  Army  as  it  then  was.  He 
had  already  lawful  authority  to  raise  that  number  to 
nearly  three  times  as  many.  And,  though  there  was  pro- 
test in  some  States,  and  some  friction  between  the  Con- 
federate War  Department  and  the  State  militias,  on  the 
whole  the  seceding  States,  in  theory  jealous  of  their 
rights,  submitted  very  readily  in  questions  of  defence  to 
the  Confederacy. 

It  is  not  clear  how  far  the  Southern  people  displayed 
their  warlike  temper  by  a  sustained  flow  of  voluntary 
enlistment;  but  their  Congress  showed  the  utmost 
promptitude  in  granting  every  necessary  power  to  their 
President,  and  on  April  16,  1862,  a  sweeping  measure 
of  compulsory  service  was  passed.  The  President  of  the 
Confederacy  could  call  into  the  service  any  white  resident 
in  the  South  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  thirty-five, 
with  certain  statutory  exemptions.  There  was,  of  course, 
trouble  about  the  difficult  question  of  exemptions,  and 
under  conflicting  pressure  the  Confederate  Congress  made 
and  unmade  various  laws  about  them.  After  a  time  all 
statutory  exemptions  were  done  away,  and  it  was  left  en- 
tirely in  the  discretion  of  the  Southern  President  to  say 
what  men  were  required  in  various  departments  of  civil 
life.  The  liability  to  serve  was  extended  in  September, 
1862,  to  all  between  eighteen  and  forty-five,  and  finally 
in  February,  1864,  to  all  between  seventeen  and  fifty. 
The  rigorous  conscription  which  necessity  required  could 
not  be  worked  without  much  complaint.  There  was  a 
party  disposed  to  regard  the  law  as  unconstitutional. 
The  existence  of  sovereign  States  within  the  Confederacy 
was  very  likely  an  obstacle  to  the  local  and  largely  volun- 
tary organisation  for  deciding  claims  which  can  exist  in 
j.  unified  country.  A  Government  so  hard  driven  must, 


368  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

even  if  liberally  minded,  have  enforced  the  law  with 
much  actual  hardship.  A  belief  in  the  ruthlessness  of 
the  Southern  conscription  penetrated  to  the  North.  If 
was  probably  exaggerated  from  the  temptation  to  sup* 
pose  that  secession  was  the  work  of  a  tyranny  and  not 
of  the  Southern  people.  Desertion  and  failure  of  the 
Conscription  Law  became  common  in  the  course  of  1864, 
but  this  would  seem  to  have  been  due  not  so  much  to  re- 
sentment at  the  system  as  to  the  actual  loss  of  a  large 
part  of  the  South,  and  the  spread  of  a  perception  that  the 
war  was  now  hopelessly  lost.  In  the  last  extremities  of 
the  Confederate  Government  the  power  of  compulsion  of 
course  completely  broke  down.  But,  upon  the  surface  at 
least,  it  seems  plain  that  what  has  been  called  the  military 
despotism  of  Jefferson  Davis  rested  upon  the  determina- 
tion rather  than  upon  the  submissiveness  of  the  people. 
In  the  North,  where  there  was  double  the  population 
to  draw  upon,  the  need  for  compulsion  was  not  likely  to 
be  felt  as  soon.  The  various  influences  which  would 
later  depress  enlistment  had  hardly  begun  to  assert  them- 
selves, when  the  Government,  as  if  to  aggravate  them 
in  advance,  committed  a  blunder  which  has  never  been 
surpassed  in  its  own  line.  On  April  3,  1862,  recruiting 
was  stopped  dead;  the  central  recruiting  office  at  Wash' 
ington  was  closed  and  its  staff  dispersed.  Many  writers 
agree  in  charging  this  error  against  Stanton.  He  must 
have  been  the  prime  author  of  it,  but  this  does  not  exon^ 
erate  Lincoln.  It  was  no  departmental  matter,  but  a 
matter  of  supreme  policy.  Lincoln's  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  his  appreciation  of  the  larger  bearings 
of  every  question  might  have  been  expected  to  set  Stanton 
right,  unless,  indeed,  the  thing  was  done  suddenly  be- 
hind his  back.  In  any  case,  this  must  be  added  to  the 
indications  seen  in  an  earlier  chapter,  that  Lincoln's  calm 
strength  and  sure  judgment  had  at  that  time  not  yet 
reached  their  full  development.  As  for  Stanton,  a  man 
of  much  narrower  mind,  but  acute,  devoted,  and  morally 
fearless,  kept  in  the  War  Department  as  a  sort  of  tame 
tiger  to  prey  on  abuses,  negligences,  pretensions,  and 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  369 

political  influences,  this  was  one  among  a  hundred  smaller 
erratic  doings,  which  his  critics  have  never  thought  of 
as  outweighing  his  peculiar  usefulness.  His  departmental 
point  of  view  can  easily  be  understood.  Recruits,  em- 
barrassingly, presented  themselves  much  faster  than  they 
could  be  organised  or  equipped,  and  an  overdriven  office 
did  not  pause  to  think  out  some  scheme  of  enlistment  for 
deferred  service.  Waste  had  been  terrific,  and  Stanton 
did  not  dislike  a  petty  economy  which  might  shock  people 
in  Washington.  McClellan  clamoured  for  more  men — 
let  him  do  something  with  what  he  had  got;  Stanton,  in- 
deed, very  readily  became  sanguine  that  McClellan,  once 
in  motion,  would  crush  the  Confederacy.  Events  con- 
spired to  make  the  mistake  disastrous.  In  these  very 
days  the  Confederacy  was  about  to  pass  its  own  Con- 
scription Act.  McClellan,  instead  of  pressing  on  to 
Richmond,  sat  down  before  Yorktown  and  let  the  Con- 
federate conscripts  come  up.  Halleck  was  crawling  south- 
ward, when  a  rapid  advance  might  have  robbed  the  South 
of  a  large  recruiting  area.  The  reopening  of  enlistment 
came  on  the  top  of  the  huge  disappointment  at  Mc- 
Clellan's  failure  in  the  peninsula.  There  was  a  credit- 
able response  to  the  call  which  was  then  made  for  volun- 
teers. But  the  disappointment  of  the  war  continued 
throughout  1862;  the  second  Bull  Run;  the  inconclusive 
sequel  to  Antietam;  Fredericksburg;  and,  side  by  side 
with  these  events,  the  long-drawn  failure  of  Buell's  and 
Rosecrans'  operations.  The  spirit  of  voluntary  service 
seems  to  have  revived  vigorously  enough  wherever  and 
whenever  the  danger  of  Southern  invasion  became  press- 
ing, but  under  this  protracted  depressing  influence  it  no 
longer  rose  to  the  task  of  subduing  the  South.  It  must 
be  added  that  wages  in  civil  employment  were  very  high. 
Lincoln,  it  is  evident,  felt  this  apparent  failure  of  patriot- 
ism sadly,  but  in  calm  retrospect  it  cannot  seem  sur- 
prising. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1862  attempts  were  made  to  use 
the  powers  of  compulsion  which  the  several  States  pos- 
sessed, under  the  antiquated  laws  as  to  militia  which  ex- 


370  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

isted  in  all  of  them,  in  order  to  supplement  recruiting. 
The  number  of  men  raised  for  short  periods  in  this  way 
is  so  small  that  the  description  of  the  Northern  armies 
at  this  time  as  purely  volunteer  armies  hardly  needs  qual- 
ification. It  would  probably  be  worth  no  one's  while  to 
investigate  the  makeshift  system  with  which  the  Govern- 
ment, very  properly,  then  tried  to  help  itself  out;  for  it 
speedily  and  completely  failed.  The  Conscription  Act, 
which  became  law  on  March  3,  1863,  set  up  for  the  first 
time  an  organisation  for  recruiting  which  covered  the 
whole  country  but  was  under  the  complete  control  of  the 
Federal  Government.  It  was  placed  under  an  officer  of 
great  ability,  General  J.  B.  Fry,  formerly  chief  of  staff 
to  Buell,  and  now  entitled  Provost-Marshal-General. 
It  was  his  business,  through  provost-marshals  in  a  num- 
ber of  districts,  each  divisible  into  sub-districts  as  con- 
venience might  require,  to  enroll  all  male  citizens  between 
twenty  and  forty-five.  He  was  to  assign  a  quota,  in  other 
words  a  stated  proportion  of  the  number  of  troops  for 
which  the  Government  might  at  any  time  call,  to  each 
district,  having  regard  to  the  number  of  previous  enlist- 
ments from  each  district.  The  management  of  voluntary 
enlistment  was  placed  in  his  hands,  in  order  that  the  two 
methods  of  recruiting  might  be  worked  in  harmony.  The 
system  as  a  whole  was  quite  distinct  from  any  such  sys- 
tem of  universal  service  as  might  have  been  set  up  be- 
forehand in  time  of  peace.  Compulsion  only  came  into 
force  in  default  of  sufficient  volunteers  from  any  district 
to  provide  its  required  number  of  the  troops  wanted. 
When  it  came  into  force  the  "  drafts  "  of  conscripts  were 
chosen  by  lot  from  among  those  enrolled  as  liable  for 
service.  But  there  was  a  way  of  escape  from  actual 
service.  It  seems,  from  what  Lincoln  wrote,  to  have 
been  looked  upon  as  a  time-honoured  principle,  estab- 
lished by  precedent  in  all  countries,  that  the  man  on 
whom  the  lot  fell  might  provide  a  substitute  if  he  could. 
The  market  price  of  a  substitute  (a  commodity  for  the 
provision  of  which  a  class  of  "  substitute  brokers  "  came 
into  being)  proved  to  be  about  1,000  dollars.  Business 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  371 

or  professional  men,  who  felt  they  could  not  be  spared 
from  home  but  wished  to  act  patriotically,  did  buy  sub- 
stitutes ;  but  they  need  not  have  done  so,  for  the  law  con- 
tained a  provision  intended,  as  Lincoln  recorded,  to  safe- 
guard poorer  men  against  such  a  rise  in  prices.  They 
could  escape  by  paying  300  dollars,  or  £60,  not,  in  the 
then  state  of  wages,  an  extravagant  penalty  upon  an  able- 
bodied  man.  The  sums  paid  under  this  provision  cov- 
ered the  cost  of  the  recruiting  business. 

Most  emphatically  the  Conscription  Law  operated 
mainly  as  a  stimulus  to  voluntary  enlistment.  The  vol- 
unteer received,  as  the  conscript  did  not,  a  bounty  from 
the  Government;  States,  counties,  and  smaller  localities, 
when  once  a  quota  was  assigned  to  them,  vied  with  one 
another  in  filling  their  quota  with  volunteers,  and  for  that 
purpose  added  to  the  Government  bounty.  It  goes  with- 
out saying  that  in  a  new  country,  with  its  scattered  coun- 
try population  and  its  disorganised  great  new  towns,  there 
were  plenty  of  abuses.  Substitute  brokers  provided  the 
wrong  article;  ingenious  rascals  invented  the  trade  of 
"  bounty-jumping,"  and  would  enlist  for  a  bounty,  desert, 
enlist  for  another  bounty,  and  so  on  indefinitely;  and  the 
number  of  men  enrolled  who  were  afterwards  unac- 
counted for  was  large.  There  was  of  course  also  grum- 
bling of  localities  at  the  quotas  assigned  to  them,  though 
no  pains  were  spared  to  assign  them  fairly.  There  was 
some  opposition  to  the  working  of  the  law  after  it  was 
passed,  but  it  was,  not  general,  but  partly  the  opposition 
of  rowdies  in  degraded  neighbourhoods,  partly  factitious 
political  opposition,  and  partly  seditious  and  openly 
friendly  to  the  South.  In  general  the  country  accepted 
the  law  as  a  manifest  military  necessity.  The  spirit  and 
manner  of  its  acceptance  may  be  judged  from  the  results 
of  any  of  the  calls  for  troops  under  this  law.  For  exam- 
ple, in  December,  1864,  towards  the  end  of  the  war, 
211,752  men  were  brought  up  to  the  colours;  of  these  it 
seems  that  194,715  were  ordinary  volunteers,  10,192 
were  substitutes  provided  by  conscripts,  and  only  6,845 
were  actually  compelled  men.  It  is  perhaps  more  signifi- 


372  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cant  still  that  among  those  who  did  not  serve  there  were 
only  460  who  paid  the  3OO-dollar  penalty,  as  against  the 
10,192  who  must  have  paid  at  least  three  times  that  sum 
for  substitutes.  Behind  the  men  who  had  been  called  up 
by  the  end  of  the  war  the  North  had,  enrolled  and  ready 
to  be  called,  over  two  million  men.  The  North  had  not 
to  suffer  as  the  South  suffered,  but  unquestionably  in  this 
matter  it  rose  to  the  occasion. 

The  constitutional  validity  of  the  law  was  much  ques- 
tioned by  politicians,  but  never  finally  tried  out  on  appeal 
to  the  Supreme  Court.  There  seems  to  be  no  room  for 
doubt  that  Lincoln's  own  reasoning  on  this  matter  was 
sound.  The  Constitution  simply  gave  to  Congress 
"  power  to  raise  and  support  armies,"  without  a  word 
as  to  the  particular  means  to  be  used  for  the  purpose; 
the  new  and  extremely  well-considered  Constitution  of 
the  Confederacy  was  in  this  respect  the  same.  The  Con- 
stitution, argued  Lincoln,  would  not  have  given  the  power 
of  raising  armies  without  one  word  as  to  the  mode  in 
which  it  was  to  be  exercised,  if  it  had  not  meant  Con- 
gress to  be  the  sole  judge  as  to  the  mode.  "  The  princi- 
ple," he  wrote,  "  of  the  draft,  which  simply  is  involuntary 
or  enforced  service,  is  not  new.  It  has  been  prac- 
tised in  all  ages  of  the  world.  It  was  well  known  to  the 
framers  of  our  Constitution  as  one  of  the  modes  of  rais- 
ing armies.  ...  It  had  been  used  just  before,  in 
establishing  our  independence,  and  it  was  also  used  under 
the  Constitution  in  1812."  In  fact,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
certain  power  of  compelling  military  service  existed  in 
each  of  the  States  and  had  existed  in  them  from  the  first. 
Their  ancestors  had  brought  the  principle  with  them  from 
the  old  country,  in  which  the  system  of  the  "  militia 
ballot "  had  not  fallen  into  desuetude  when  they  became 
independent.  The  traditional  English  jealousy,  which 
the  American  Colonies  had  imbibed,  against  the  military 
power  of  the  Crown  had  never  manifested  itself  in  any 
objection  to  the  means  which  might  be  taken  to  raise 
soldiers,  but  in  establishing  a  strict  control  of  the  number 
which  the  Crown  could  at  any  moment  maintain;  and 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  373 

this  control  had  long  been  in  England  and  had  always 
been  in  America  completely  effective.  We  may  there- 
fore treat  the  protest  which  was  raised  against  the  law  as 
unconstitutional,  and  the  companion  argument  that 
it  tended  towards  military  despotism,  as  having  be- 
longed to  the  realm  of  political  verbiage,  and  as  neither 
founded  in  reason  nor  addressed  to  living  popular 
emotions. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  the  Northern  people,  of  whom 
a  large  part  were,  it  must  be  remembered,  Democrats, 
seem  to  have  regarded  these  contentions,  and  a  real 
sense,  apart  from  these  contentions,  that  conscription 
was  unnecessary  or  produced  avoidable  hardship  seems 
scarcely  to  have  existed.  It  was  probably  for  this  reason 
that  Lincoln  never  published  the  address  to  the  people, 
or  perhaps  more  particularly  to  the  Democratic  opposi- 
tion, to  which  several  references  have  already  been  made. 
In  the  course  of  it  he  said:  "At  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
and  ever  since,  a  variety  of  motives,  pressing,  some  in 
one  direction  and  some  in  the  other,  would  be  presented 
to  the  mind  of  each  man  physically  fit  to  be  a  soldier, 
upon  the  combined  effect  of  which  motives  he  would, 
or  would  not,  voluntarily  enter  the  service.  Among  these 
motives  would  be  patriotism,  political  bias,  ambition,  per- 
sonal courage,  love  of  adventure,  want  of  employment, 
and  convenience,  or  the  opposite  of  some  of  these.  We 
already  have  and  have  had  in  the  service,  as  it  appears, 
substantially  all  that  can  be  obtained  upon  this  voluntary 
weighing  of  motives.  And  yet  we  must  somehow  obtain 
more  or  relinquish  the  original  object  of  the  contest,  to- 
gether with  all  the  blood  and  treasure  already  expended 
in  the  effort  to  secure  it.  To  meet  this  necessity  the  law 
for  the  draft  has  been  enacted.  You  who  do  not  wish  to 
be  soldiers  do  not  like  this  law.  This  is  natural;  nor  does 
it  imply  want  of  patriotism.  Nothing  can  be  so  just  and 
necessary  as  to  make  us  like  it  if  it  is  disagreeable  to  us. 
We  are  prone,  too,  to  find  false  arguments  with  which  to 
excuse  ourselves  for  opposing  such  disagreeable  things." 
He  proceeded  to  meet  some  of  these  arguments  upon  the 


374  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lines  which  have  already  been  indicated.  After  speaking 
of  the  precedents  for  conscription  in  America,  he  con- 
tinued: "Wherein  is  the  peculiar  hardship  now?  Shall 
we  shrink  from  the  necessary  means  to  maintain  our  free 
government,  which  our  grandfathers  employed  to  estab- 
lish it  and  our  fathers  have  already  once  employed  to 
maintain  it?  Are  we  degenerate?  Has  the  manhood  of 
our  race  run  out?"  Unfair  administration  was  appre- 
hended. "  This  law,"  he  said,  "  belongs  to  a  class,  which 
class  is  composed  of  those  laws  whose  object  is  to  dis- 
tribute burthens  or  benefits  on  the  principle  of  equality. 
No  one  of  these  laws  can  ever  be  practically  administered 
with  that  exactness  which  can  be  conceived  of  in  the  mind. 
A  tax  law  .  .  .  will  be  a  dead  letter  if  no  one  will 
be  compelled  to  pay  until  it  can  be  shown  that  every  other 
one  will  be  compelled  to  pay  in  precisely  the  same  pro- 
portion according  to  value;  nay,  even  it  will  be  a  dead 
letter  if  no  one  can  be  compelled  to  pay  until  it  is  certain 
that  every  other  one  will  pay  at  all.  .  .  .  This  sort 
of  difficulty  applies  in  full  force  to  the  practical  admin- 
istration of  the  draft  law.  In  fact,  the  difficulty  is  greater 
in  the  case  of  the  draft  law  " ;  and  he  proceeded  to  state 
the  difficulties.  "  In  all  these  points,"  he  continued, 
"  errors  will  occur  in  spite  of  the  utmost  fidelity.  The 
Government  is  bound  to  administer  the  law  with  such  an 
approach  to  exactness  as  is  usual  in  analogous  cases,  and 
as  entire  good  faith  and  fidelity  will  reach."  Errors, 
capable  of  correction,  should,  he  promised,  be  corrected 
when  pointed  out;  but  he  concluded:  "  With  these  views 
and  on  these  principles,  I  feel  bound  to  tell  you  it  is  my 
purpose  to  see  the  draft  law  faithfully  executed."  It 
was  his  way,  as  has  been  seen,  sometimes  to  set  his 
thoughts  very  plainly  on  paper  and  to  consider  after- 
wards the  wisdom  of  publishing  them.  This  paper  never 
saw  the  light  till  after  his  death.  It  is  said  that  some 
scruple  as  to  the  custom  in  his  office  restrained  him  from 
sending  it  out,  but  this  scruple  probably  weighed  with 
him  the  more  because  he  saw  that  the  sincere  people 
whom  he  had  thought  of  addressing  needed  no  such  ap- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  375 

peal.    It  was  surely  a  wise  man  who,  writing  so  wisely, 
could  see  the  greater  wisdom  of  silence. 

The  opposition  to  the  Conscription  Law  may  be 
treated  simply  as  one  element  in  the  propaganda  of  the 
official  Opposition  to  the  Administration.  The  opposi- 
tion to  such  a  measure  which  we  might  possibly  have  ex- 
pected to  arise  from  churches,  or  from  schools  of  thought 
independent  of  the  ordinary  parties,  does  not  seem,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  to  have  arisen.  The  Democratic  party 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  revived  in  force  in  the  latter  part 
of  1862.  Persons,  ambitious,  from  whatever  mixture  of 
motives,  of  figuring  as  leaders  of  opposition  during  a  war 
which  they  did  not  condemn,  found  a  public  to  which  to 
appeal,  mainly  because  the  war  was  not  going  well.  They 
found  a  principle  of  opposition  satisfactory  to  themselves 
in  condemning  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.  (It 
was  significant  that  McClellan  shortly  after  the  Procla- 
mation issued  a  General  Order  enjoining  obedience  to 
the  Government  and  adding  the  hint  that  "  the  remedy 
for  political  errors,  if  any  are  committed,  is  to  be  found 
only  in  the  action  of  the  people  at  the  polls.")  In  the 
curious  creed  which  respectable  men,  with  whom  alle- 
giance to  an  ancient  party  could  be  a  powerful  motive  at 
such  a  time,  were  driven  to  construct  for  themselves,  en- 
forcement of  the  duty  to  defend  the  country  and  libera- 
tion of  the  enemy's  slaves  appeared  as  twin  offences 
against  the  sacred  principles  of  constitutional  freedom. 
It  would  have  been  monstrous  to  say  that  most  of  the 
Democrats  were  opposed  to  the  war.  Though  a  consid- 
erable number  had  always  disliked  it  and  now  found 
courage  to  speak  loudly,  the  bulk  were  as  loyal  to  the 
Union  as  those  very  strong  Republicans  like  Greeley, 
who  later  on  despaired  of  maintaining  it.  But  there  were 
naturally  Democrats  for  whom  a  chance  now  appeared 
in  politics,  and  who  possessed  that  common  type  of  polit- 
ical mind  that  meditates  deeply  on  minor  issues  and  is  in- 
flamed by  zeal  against  minor  evils.  Such  men  began  to 
debate  with  their  consciences  whether  the  wicked  Gov- 
ernment might  not  Wome  more  odious  than  the  enemy. 


376  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

There  arose,  too,  as  there  often  arises  in  war  time,  a 
fraternal  feeling  between  men  who  hated  the  war  and 
men  who  reflected  how  much  better  they  could  have 
waged  it  themselves. 

There  was,  of  course,  much  in  the  conduct  of  the  Gov- 
ernment which  called  for  criticism,  and  on  that  account  it 
was  a  grievous  pity  that  independence  should  have  stulti- 
fied itself  by  reviving  in  any  form  the  root  principle  of 
party  government,  and  recognising  as  the  best  critics  of 
the  Administration  men  who  desired  to  take  its  place. 
More  useful  censure  of  the  Government  at  that  time 
might  have  come  from  men  who,  if  they  had  axes  to 
grind,  would  have  publicly  thrown  them  away.  There 
were  two  points  which  especially  called  for  criticism, 
apart  from  military  administration,  upon  which,  as  it  hap- 
pened, Lincoln  knew  more  than  his  critics  knew  and  more 
than  he  could  say.  One  of  these  points  was  extravagance 
and  corruption  in  the  matter  of  army  contracts  and  the 
like;  these  evils  were  dangerously  prevalent,  but  mem- 
bers of  the  Cabinet  were  as  anxious  to  prevent  them  as 
any  outside  critic  could  be,  and  it  was  friendly  help,  not 
censure,  that  was  required.  The  other  point  was  the 
exercise  of  martial  law,  a  difficult  question,  upon  which 
a  word  must  here  be  said,  but  upon  which  only  those  could 
usefully  have  spoken  out  whose  general  support  of  the 
Government  was  pronounced  and  sincere. 

In  almost  every  rebellion  or  civil  war  statesmen  and 
the  military  officers  under  them  are  confronted  with  the 
need,  for  the  sake  of  the  public  safety  or  even  of  ordinary 
justice,  of  rules  and  procedure  which  the  law  in  peace 
time  would  abhor.  In  great  conflicts,  such  as  our  own 
wars  after  the  French  Revolution  and  the  American  Civil 
War,  statesmen  such  as  Pitt  and  Lincoln,  capable  of 
handling  such  a  problem  well,  have  had  their  hands  full 
of  yet  more  urgent  matters.  The  puzzling  part  of  the 
problem  does  not  lie  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  actual 
fighting,  where  for  the  moment  there  can  be  no  law  but 
the  will  of  the  commander,  but  in  the  districts  more  dis 
tantly  affected,  or  in  the  period  when  the  war  is  smoulder- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  377 

ing  out.  Lincoln's  Government  had  at  first  to  guard  it- 
self against  dangerous  plots  which  could  be  scented  but 
not  proved  in  Washington ;  later  on  it  had  to  answer  such 
questions  as  this :  What  should  be  done  when  a  suspected 
agent  of  the  enemy  is  vaguely  seen  to  be  working  against 
enlistment,  when  an  attack  by  the  civil  mob  upon  the  re- 
cruits is  likely  to  result,  and  when  the  local  magistrate 
and  police  are  not  much  to  be  trusted?  There  is  no 
doubt  that  Seward  at  the  beginning,  and  Stanton  persist- 
ently, and  zealous  local  commanders  now  and  then  solved 
such  problems  in  a  very  hasty  fashion,  or  that  Lincoln 
throughout  was  far  more  anxious  to  stand  by  vigorous 
agents  of  the  Government  than  to  correct  them. 

Lincoln  claimed  that  as  Commander-in-Chief  he  had 
during  the  continuance  of  civil  war  a  lawful  authority 
over  the  lives  and  liberties  of  all  citizens,  whether  loyal 
or  otherwise,  such  as  any  military  commander  exercises 
in  hostile  country  occupied  by  his  troops.  He  held  that 
there  was  no  proper  legal  remedy  for  persons  injured 
under  this  authority  except  by  impeachment  of  himself. 
He  held,  further,  that  this  authority  extended  to  every 
place  to  which  the  action  of  the  enemy  in  any  form  ex- 
tended— that  is,  to  the  whole  country.  This  he  took  to 
be  the  doctrine  of  English  Common  Law,  and  he  con- 
tended that  the  Constitution  left  this  doctrine  in  full 
force.  Whatever  may  be  said  as  to  his  view  of  the 
Common  Law  doctrine,  his  construction  of  the  Consti- 
tution would  now  be  held  by  every  one  to  have  been 
wrong.  Plainly  read,  the  Constitution  swept  away  the 
whole  of  that  somewhat  undefined  doctrine  of  martial 
law  which  may  be  found  in  some  decisions  of  our  Courts, 
and  it  did  much  more.  Every  Legislature  in  the  British 
Empire  can,  subject  to  the  veto  of  the  Crown,  enact 
whatever  exceptional  measures  of  public  safety  it  thinks 
necessary  in  an  emergency.  The  Constitution  restricted 
this  legislative  power  within  the  very  narrowest  limits. 
There  is,  moreover,  a  recognised  British  practice,  ini- 
tiated by  Wellington  and  Castlereagh,  by  which  all  ques- 
tion as  to  the  authority  of  martial  law  is  avoided;  a 


378  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

governor  or  commander  during  great  public  peril  is  en- 
couraged to  consider  what  is  right  and  necessary,  not 
what  is  lawful,  knowing  that  if  necessary  there  will  be 
enquiry  into  his  conduct  afterwards,  but  knowing  also 
that,  unless  he  acts  quite  unconscionably,  he  and  his  agents 
will  be  protected  by  an  Act  of  Indemnity  from  the  legal 
consequences  of  whatever  they  have  done  in  good  faith. 
The  American  Constitution  would  seem  to  render  any 
such  Act  of  Indemnity  impossible.  In  a  strictly  legal 
sense,  therefore,  the  power  which  Lincoln  exercised  must 
be  said  to  have  been  usurped.  The  arguments  by  which 
he  defended  his  own  legality  read  now  as  good  argu- 
ments on  what  the  law  should  have  been,  but  bad  argu- 
ments on  what  the  law  was.  He  did  not,  perhaps,  attach 
extreme  importance  to  this  legal  contention,  for  he  de- 
clared plainly  that  he  was  ready  to  break  the  law  in  minor 
matters  rather  than  let  the  whole  fabric  of  law  go  to 
ruin.  This,  however,  does  not  prove  that  he  was  insin- 
cere when  he  pleaded  legal  as  well  as  moral  justification; 
he  probably  regarded  the  Constitution  in  a  manner  which 
modern  lawyers  find  it  difficult  to  realise;  he  probably 
applied  in  construing  it  a  principle  such  as  Hamilton  laid 
down  for  the  construction  of  statutes,  that  it  was  "  qual- 
ified and  controlled  "  by  the  Common  Law  and  by  con- 
siderations of  "  convenience  "  and  of  "  reason  "  and  of 
the  policy  which  its  framers,  as  wise  and  honest  men, 
would  have  followed  in  present  circumstances;  he  prob- 
ably would  have  adapted  to  the  occasion  Hamilton's 
position  that  "  construction  may  be  made  against  the 
letter  of  the  statute  to  render  it  agreeable  to  natural 
justice." 

In  the  exercise  of  his  supposed  prerogative  Lincoln 
sanctioned  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  war  the  arrest 
of  many  suspected  dangerous  persons  under  what  may 
be  called  "  letters  de  cachet "  from  Seward  and  after- 
wards from  Stanton.  He  publicly  professed  in  1863  his 
regret  that  he  had  not  caused  this  to  be  done  in  cases^ 
such  as  those  of  Lee  and  Joseph  Johnston,  where  it  had 
not  been  done.  When  agitation  arose  on  the  matter  in 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  379 

the  end  of  1862  many  political  prisoners  were,  no  doubt 
wisely,  released.  Congress  then  proceeded,  in  1863,  to 
exercise  such  powers  in  the  matter  as  the  Constitution 
gave  it  by  an  Act  suspending,  where  the  President  thought 
fit,  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  A  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  delivered  curiously  enough  by 
Lincoln's  old  friend  David  Davis,  showed  that  the  real 
effect  of  this  Act,  so  far  as  valid  under  the  Constitution, 
was  ridiculously  small  (see  Ex  parte  Milligan,  4  Russell, 
2).  In  any  case  the  Act  was  hedged  about  with  many 
precautions.  These  were  entirely  disregarded  by  the 
Government,  which  proceeded  avowedly  upon  Lincoln's 
theory  of  martial  law.  The  whole  country  was  eventually 
proclaimed  to  be  under  martial  law,  and  many  persons 
were  at  the  orders  of  the  local  military  commander  tried 
and  punished  by  court-martial  for  offences,  such  as  the 
discouragement  of  enlistment  or  the  encouragement  of 
desertion,  which  might  not  have  been  punishable  by  the 
ordinary  law,  or  of  which  the  ordinary  Courts  might  not 
have  convicted  them.  This  fresh  outbreak  of  martial 
law  must  in  large  part  be  ascribed  to  Lincoln's  determina- 
tion that  the  Conscription  Act  should  not  be  frustrated; 
but  apart  from  offences  relating  to  enlistment  there  was 
from  1863  onwards  no  lack  of  seditious  plots  fomented 
by  the  agents  of  the  Confederacy  in  Canada,  and  there 
were  several  secret  societies,  "  knights  "  of  this,  that,  or 
the  other.  Lincoln,  it  is  true,  scoffed  at  these,  but  very 
often  the  general  on  the  spot  thought  seriously  of  them, 
and  the  extreme  Democratic  leader,  Vallandigham, 
boasted  that  there  were  half  a  million  men  in  the  North 
enrolled  in  such  seditious  organisations.  Drastic  as  the 
Government  proceedings  were,  the  opposition  to  them 
died  down  before  the  popular  conviction  that  strong 
measures  were  necessary,  and  the  popular  appreciation 
that  the  blood-thirsty  despot  "  King  Abraham  I.,"  as  some 
Democrats  were  pleased  to  call  him,  was  not  of  the  stuff 
of  which  despots  were  made  and  was  among  the  least 
blood-thirsty  men  living.  The  civil  Courts  made  no  at- 
tempt to  interfere ;  they  said  that,  whatever  the  law,  they 


38o  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

could  not  in  fact  resist  generals  commanding  armies. 
British  Courts  would  in  many  cases  have  declined  to  in- 
terfere, not  on  the  ground  that  the  general  had  the  might, 
but  on  the  ground  that  he  had  the  right;  yet,  it  seems, 
they  would  not  quite  have  relinquished  their  hold  on  the 
matter,  but  would  have  held  themselves  free  to  consider 
whether  the  district  in  which  martial  law  was  exercised 
was  materially  affected  by  the  state  of  war  or  not.  The 
legal  controversy  ended  in  a  manner  hardly  edifying  to 
the  layman;  in  the  course  of  1865  the  Supreme  Court 
solemnly  tried  out  the  question  of  the  right  of  one  Milli- 
gan  to  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  At  that  time  the  war,  the 
only  ground  on  which  the  right  could  have  been  refused 
him,  had  for  some  months  been  ended;  and  nobody  in 
court  knew  or  cared  whether  Milligan  was  then  living  to 
enjoy  his  right  or  had  been  shot  long  before. 

Save  in  a  few  cases  of  special  public  interest,  Lincoln 
took  no  personal  part  in  the  actual  administration  of  these 
coercive  measures.  So  great  a  tax  was  put  upon  his  time, 
and  indeed  his  strength,  by  the  personal  consideration  of 
cases  of  discipline  in  the  army,  that  he  could  not  possibly 
have  undertaken  a  further  labour  of  the  sort.  More- 
over, he  thought  it  more  necessary  for  the  public  good  to 
give  steady  support  to  his  ministers  and  generals  than  to 
check  their  action  in  detail.  He  contended  that  no  great 
injustice  was  likely  to  arise.  Very  likely  he  was  wrong; 
not  only  Democrats,  but  men  like  Senator  John  Sherman, 
a  strong  and  sensible  Republican,  thought  him  wrong. 
There  are  evil  stories  about  the  secret  police  under  Stan- 
ton,  and  some  records  of  the  proceedings  of  the  courts- 
martial,  composed  sometimes  of  the  officers  least  useful 
at  the  front,  are  not  creditable.  Very  likely,  as  John 
Sherman  thought,  the  ordinary  law  would  have  met  the 
needs  of  the  case  in  many  districts.  The  mere  number 
of  the  political  prisoners,  who  counted  by  thousands, 
proves  nothing,  for  the  least  consideration  of  the  circum- 
stances will  show  that  the  active  supporters  of  the  Con- 
federacy in  the  North  must  have  been  very  numerous. 
Nor  does  it  matter  much  that,  to  the  horror  of  some 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  381 

people,  there  were  persons  of  station,  culture,  and  re- 
spectability among  the  sufferers;  persons  of  this  kind 
were  not  likely  to  be  exposed  to  charges  of  disloyal  con- 
duct if  they  were  actively  loyal.  Obscure  and  ignorant 
men  are  much  more  likely  to  have  become  the  innocent 
victims  of  spiteful  accusers  or  vile  agents  of  police. 
Doubtless  this  might  happen;  but  that  does  not  of  itself 
condemn  Lincoln  for  having  maintained  an  extreme  form 
of  martial  law.  The  particular  kind  of  oppression  that 
is  likely  to  have  occurred  is  one  against  which  the  normal 
procedure  of  justice  and  police  in  America  is  said  to-day 
to  provide  no  sufficient  safeguard.  It  is  almost  certain 
that  the  regular  course  of  law  would  have  exposed  the 
public  weal  to  formidable  dangers;  but  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  it  would  have  saved  individuals  from  wrong. 
The  risk  that  many  individuals  would  be  grievously 
wronged  was  at  least  not  very  great.  The  Government 
was  not  pursuing  men  for  erroneous  opinions,  but  for 
certain  very  definite  kinds  of  action  dangerous  to  the 
State.  These  were  indeed  kinds  of  action  with  which 
Lincoln  thought  ordinary  Courts  of  justice  "  utterly  in- 
competent "  to  deal,  and  he  avowed  that  he  aimed  rather 
at  preventing  intended  actions  than  at  punishing  them 
when  done.  To  some  minds  this  will  seem  to  be  an  atti- 
tude dangerous  to  liberty,  but  he  was  surely  justified 
when  he  said,  "  In  such  cases  the  purposes  of  men  are 
much  more  easily  understood  than  in  cases  of  ordinary 
crime.  The  man  who  stands  by  and  says  nothing  when 
the  peril  of  his  Government  is  discussed  cannot  be  mis- 
understood. If  not  hindered,  he  is  sure  to  help  the 
enemy,  much  more  if  he  talks  ambiguously — talks  for  his 
country  with  *  buts  '  and  '  ifs  '  and  '  ands.'  "  In  any  case, 
Lincoln  stood  clearly  and  boldly  for  repressing  speech  or 
act,  that  could  help  the  enemy,  with  extreme  vigour  and 
total  disregard  for  the  legalities  of  peace  time.  A  little 
later  on  we  shall  see  fully  whether  this  imported  on  his 
part  any  touch  whatever  of  the  ferocity  which  it  may 
seem  to  suggest. 

The  Democratic  opposition  which  made  some  headway 


382  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  the  first  half  of  1863  comprised  a  more  extreme  op- 
position prevailing  in  the  West  and  led  by  Clement  Val- 
landigham, a  Congressman  from  Ohio,  and  a  milder 
opposition  led  by  Horatio  Seymour,  who  from  the  end  of 
1862  to  the  end  of  1864,  when  he  failed  of  re-election, 
was  Governor  of  New  York  State.  The  extreme  section 
were  often  called  "  Copperheads,"  after  a  venomous 
snake  of  that  name.  Strictly,  perhaps,  this  political  term 
should  be  limited  to  the  few  who  went  so  far  as  to  desire 
the  victory  of  the  South;  more  loosely  it  was  applied  to 
a  far  larger  number  who  went  no  further  than  to  say  that 
the  war  should  be  stopped.  This  demand,  it  must  be 
observed,  was  based  upon  the  change  of  policy  shown  in 
the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.  "  The  war  for  the 
Union,"  said  Vallandigham  in  Congress  in  January,  1863, 
"  is  in  your  hands  a  most  bloody  and  costly  failure.  War 
for  the  Union  was  abandoned ;  war  for  the  negro  openly 
begun.  With  what  success  ?  Let  the  dead  at  Fredericks- 
burg  answer. — Ought  this  war  to  continue?  I  answer 
no — not  a  day,  not  an  hour.  What  then?  Shall  we  sep- 
arate? Again  I  answer,  no,  no,  no. — Stop  fighting. 
Make  an  armistice.  Accept  at  once  friendly  foreign 
mediation."  And  further:  "The  secret  but  real  pur- 
pose of  the  war  was  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States,  and 
with  it  the  change  of  our  present  democratical  form  of 
government  into  an  imperial  despotism."  This  was  in  no 
sense  treason;  it  was  merely  humbug.  The  alleged  de- 
sign to  establish  despotism,  chiefly  revealed  at  that  mo- 
ment by  the  liberation  of  slaves,  had  of  course  no  exist- 
ence. Equally  false,  as  will  be  seen  later,  was  the  whole 
suggestion  that  any  peace  could  have  been  had  with  the 
South  except  on  the  terms  of  separation.  Vallandigham, 
a  demagogue  of  real  vigour,  had  perhaps  so  much  hon- 
esty as  is  compatible  with  self-deception;  at  any  rate, 
upon  his  subsequent  visit  to  the  South  his  intercourse  with 
Southern  leaders  was  conducted  on  the  footing  that  the 
Union  should  be  restored.  But  his  character  inspired  no 
respect.  Burnside,  now  commanding  the  troops  in  Ohio, 
held  that  violent  denunciation  of  the  Government  in  a 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  383 

tone  that  tended  to  demoralise  the  troops  was  treason, 
since  it  certainly  was  not  patriotism,  and  when  in  May, 
1863,  Vallandigham  made  a  very  violent  and  offensive 
speech  in  Ohio  he  had  him  arrested  in  his  house  at  night, 
and  sent  him  before  a  court-martial  which  imprisoned 
him.  Loud  protest  was  raised  by  every  Democrat.  This 
worry  came  upon  Lincoln  just  after  Chancellorsville.  He 
regretted  Burnside's  action — later  on  he  had  to  reverse 
the  rash  suppression  of  a  newspaper  by  which  Burnside 
provoked  violent  indignation — but  on  this  occasion  he 
would  only  say  in  public  that  he  "  regretted  the  necessity  " 
of  such  action.  Evidently  he  thought  it  his  duty  to  sup- 
port a  well-intentioned  general  against  a  dangerous  agita- 
tor. The  course  which  after  some  consideration  he  took 
was  of  the  nature  of  a  practical  joke,  perhaps  justified  by 
its  success.  Vallandigham  was  indeed  released;  he  was 
taken  to  the  front  and  handed  over  to  the  Confederates 
as  if  he  had  been  an  exchanged  prisoner  of  war.  In  reply 
to  demands  from  the  Democratic  organisation  in 
Ohio  that  Vallandigham  might  be  allowed  to  return  home, 
Lincoln  offered  to  consent  if  their  leaders  would  sign  a 
pledge  to  support  the  war  and  promote  the  efficiency  of 
the  army.  This  they  called  an  evasion.  Vallandigham 
made  his  way  to  Canada  and  conducted  intrigues  from 
thence.  In  his  absence  he  was  put  up  for  the  governor- 
ship of  Ohio  in  November,  but  defeated  by  a  huge  ma- 
jority, doubtless  the  larger  because  of  Gettysburg  and 
Vicksburg.  The  next  year  he  suddenly  returned  home, 
braving  the  chance  of  arrest,  and,  probably  to  his  dis- 
appointment, Lincoln  let  him  be.  In  reply  to  protests 
against  Vallandigham's  arrest  which  had  been  sent  by 
meetings  in  Ohio  and  New  York,  Lincoln  had  written 
clear  defences  of  his  action,  from  which  the  foregoing 
account  of  his  views  on  martial  law  has  been  taken.  In 
one  of  them  was  a  sentence  which  probably  went  further 
with  the  people  of  the  North  than  any  other :  "  Must  I 
shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who  deserts,  while  I 
must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  induces  him 
to  desert?"  There  may  or  may  not  be  some  fallacy 


384  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lurking  here,  but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  sen- 
tence came  from  a  pleader's  ingenuity.  It  was  the  ex- 
pression of  a  man  really  agonised  by  his  weekly  task  of 
confirming  sentences  on  deserters  from  the  army. 

Governor  Seymour  was  a  more  presentable  antagonist 
than  Vallandigham.  He  did  not  propose  to  stop  the 
war.  On  the  contrary,  his  case  was  that  the  war  could 
only  be  effectively  carried  on  by  a  law-abiding  Govern- 
ment, which  would  unite  the  people  by  maintaining  the 
Constitution,  not,  as  the  Radicals  argued,  by  the  flagitious 
policy  of  freeing  the  slaves.  It  should  be  added  that  he 
was  really  concerned  at  the  corruption  which  was  becom- 
ing rife,  for  which  war  contracts  gave  some  scope,  and 
which,  with  a  critic's  obliviousness  to  the  limitations  of 
human  force,  he  thought  the  most  heavily-burdened  Ad- 
ministration of  its  time  could  easily  have  put  down.  With 
a  little  imagination  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  difficult 
position  of  the  orthodox  Democrats,  who  two  years  be- 
fore had  voted  against  restricting  the  extension  of  slavery, 
and  were  now  asked  for  the  sake  of  the  Union  to  sup- 
port a  Government  which  was  actually  abolishing  slavery 
by  martial  law.  Also  the  attitude  of  the  thoroughly  self- 
righteous  partisan  is  perfectly  usual.  Many  of  Governor 
Seymour's  utterances  were  fair  enough,  and  much  of  his 
conduct  was  patriotic  enough.  His  main  proceedings 
can  be  briefly  summarised.  His  election  as  Governor  in 
the  end  of  1862  was  regarded  as  an  important  event,  the 
appearance  of  a  new  leader  holding  an  office  of  the  great- 
est influence.  Lincoln,  assuming,  as  he  had  a  right  to  do, 
the  full  willingness  of  Seymour  to  co-operate  in  prosecut- 
ing the  war,  did  the  simplest  and  best  thing.  He  wrote 
and  invited  Seymour  after  his  inauguration  in  March, 
1863,  to  a  personal  conference  with  himself  as  to  the 
ways  in  which,  with  their  divergent  views,  they  could 
best  co-operate.  The  Governor  waited  three  weeks  be- 
fore he  acknowledged  this  letter.  He  then  wrote  and 
promised  a  full  reply  later.  He  never  sent  this  reply. 
He  protested  energetically  and  firmly  against  the  arrest 
of  Vallandigham.  In  July,  1863,  the  Conscription  Act 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  385 

began  to  be  put  in  force  in  New  York  city ;  then  occurred 
the  only  serious  trouble  that  ever  did  occur  under  the 
Act;  and  it  was  very  serious.  A  mob  of  foreign  immi- 
grants, mainly  Irish,  put  a  forcible  stop  to  the  proceeding 
of  the  draft.  It  set  fire  to  the  houses  of  prominent 
Republicans,  and  prevented  the  fire  brigade  from  saving 
them.  It  gave  chase  to  all  negroes  that  it  met,  beating 
some  to  death,  stringing  up  others  to  trees  and  lamp-posts 
and  burning  them  as  they  hung.  It  burned  down  an 
orphanage  for  coloured  children  after  the  police  had  with 
difficulty  saved  its  helpless  inmates.  Four  days  of  riot- 
ing prevailed  throughout  the  city  before  the  arrival  of 
fresh  troops  restored  order.  After  an  interval  of  prudent 
length  the  draft  was  successfully  carried  out.  Governor 
Seymour  arrived  in  the  city  during  the  riots.  He  ha- 
rangued this  defiled  mob  in  gentle  terms,  promising  them, 
if  they  would  be  good,  to  help  them  in  securing  redress 
of  the  grievance  to  which  he  attributed  their  conduct. 
Thenceforward  to  the  end  of  his  term  of  office  he  per- 
secuted Lincoln  with  complaints  as  to  the  unfairness  of 
the  quota  imposed  on  certain  districts  under  the  Con- 
scription Act.  It  is  true  that  he  also  protested  on  pre- 
sumably sincere  constitutional  grounds  against  the  Act 
itself,  begging  Lincoln  to  suspend  its  enforcement  till  its 
validity  had  been  determined  by  the  Courts.  As  to  this 
Lincoln  most  properly  agreed  to  facilitate,  if  he  could, 
an  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court,  but  declined,  on  the 
ground  of  urgent  military  necessity,  to  delay  the  drafts 
in  the  meantime.  Seymour's  obstructive  conduct,  how- 
ever, was  not  confined  to  the  intelligible  ground  of  ob- 
jection to  the  Act  itself;  it  showed  itself  in  the  perpetual 
assertion  that  the  quotas  were  unfair.  No  complaint  as 
to  this  had  been  raised  before  the  riots.  It  seems  that  a 
quite  unintended  error  may  in  fact  at  first  have  been 
made.  Lincoln,  however,  immediately  reduced  the  quotas 
in  question  to  the  full  extent  which  the  alleged  error 
would  have  required.  Fresh  complaints  from  Seymour 
followed,  and  so  on  to  the  end.  Ultimately  Seymour 
was  invited  to  come  to  Washington  and  have  out  the 


386  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

whole  matter  of  his  complaints  in  conference  with  Stan- 
ton.  Like  a  prudent  man,  he  again  refused  to  face  per- 
sonal conference.  It  seems  that  Governor  Seymour,  who 
was  a  great  person  in  his  day,  was  very  decidedly,  in  the 
common  acceptance  of  the  term,  a  gentleman.  This  has 
been  counted  unto  him  for  righteousness.  It  should 
rather  be  treated  as  an  aggravation  of  his  very  unmer- 
itable  conduct. 

Thus,  since  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  the 
North  had  again  become  possessed  of  what  is  sometimes 
considered  a  necessity  of  good  government,  an  organised 
Opposition  ready  and  anxious  to  take  the  place  of  the 
existing  Administration.  It  can  well  be  understood  that 
honourable  men  entered  into  this  combination,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  on  what  common  principle  they  could 
hold  together  which  would  not  have  been  disastrous  in 
its  working.  The  more  extreme  leaders,  who  were  likely 
to  prove  the  driving  force  among  them,  were  not  unfitly 
satirised  in  a  novel  of  the  time  called  the  "  Man  With- 
out a  Country."  Their  chance  of  success  in  fact  depended 
upon  the  ill-fortune  of  their  country  in  the  war  and  on 
the  irritation  against  the  Government,  which  could  be 
aroused  by  that  cause  alone  and  not  by  such  abuses  as 
they  fairly  criticised.  In  the  latter  part  of  1863  the 
war  was  going  well.  A  great  meeting  of  "  Union  men  " 
was  summoned  in  August  in  Illinois.  Lincoln  was 
tempted  to  go  and  speak  to  them,  but  he  contented  him- 
self with  a  letter.  Phrases  in  it  might  suggest  the  stump 
orator,  more  than  in  fact  his  actual  stump  speeches  usually 
did.  In  it,  however,  he  made  plain  in  the  simplest  lan- 
guage the  total  fallacy  of  such  talk  of  peace  as  had  lately 
become  common;  the  Confederacy  meant  the  Confederate 
army  and  the  men  who  controlled  it;  as  a  fact  no  sug- 
gestion of  peace  or  compromise  came  from  them;  if  it 
ever  came,  the  people  should  know  it.  In  equally  sim- 
ple terms  he  sought  to  justify,  even  to  supporters  of  the 
Union  who  did  not  share  his  "  wish  that  all  men  could 
be  free,"  his  policy  in  regard  to  emancipation.  In  any 
case,  freedom  had  for  the  sake  of  the  Union  been  prom- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  387 

ised  to  negroes  who  were  now  fighting  or  working  for 
the  North,  "  and  the  promise  being  made  must  be  kept." 
As  that  most  critical  year  of  the  war  drew  to  a  close 
there  was  a  prevailing  recognition  that  the  rough  but 
straight  path  along  which  the  President  groped  his  way 
was  the  right  path,  and  upon  the  whole  he  enjoyed  a 
degree  of  general  favour  which  was  not  often  his  por- 
tion. 

3.   The  War  in  1864. 

It  is  the  general  military  opinion  that  before  the  war 
entered  on  its  final  stage  Jefferson  Davis  should  have 
concentrated  all  his  forces  for  a  larger  invasion  of  the 
North  than  was  ever  in  fact  undertaken.  In  the  Gettys- 
burg campaign  he  might  have  strengthened  Lee's  army 
by  20,000  men  if  he  could  have  withdrawn  them  from 
the  forts  at  Charleston.  Charleston,  however,  was 
threatened  during  1863  by  the  sea  and  land  forces  of 
the  North,  in  an  expedition  which  was  probably  itself 
unwise,  as  Lincoln  himself  seems  to  have  suspected,  but 
which  helped  to  divert  a  Confederate  army.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  1864  Davis  still  kept  this  force  at  Charleston; 
he  persisted  also  in  keeping  a  hold  on  his  own  State, 
Mississippi,  with  a.  further  small  army;  while  Longstreet 
still  remained  in  the  south-east  corner  of  Tennessee, 
where  a  useful  employment  of  his  force  was  contemplated 
but  none  was  made.  The  chief  Southern  armies  with 
which  we  have  to  deal  are  that  of  Lee,  lying  south  of 
the  Rapidan,  and  that  of  Bragg,  now  superseded  by 
Joseph  Johnston,  at  Dalton,  south  of  Chattanooga.  The 
Confederacy,  it  is  thought,  was  now  in  a  position  in 
which  it  might  take  long  to  reduce  it,  but  the  only  mili- 
tary chance  for  it  was  concentration  on  one  great  counter- 
stroke.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  opinion  of  Lee  and 
Longstreet.  Jefferson  Davis  clung,  even  late  in  the  year 
1864,  to  the  belief  that  disaster  must  somehow  overtake 
any  invading  Northern  army  which  pushed  far.  Possi- 
bly he  reckoned  also  that  the  North  would  weary  of  the 
repeated  checks  in  the  process  of  conquest,  ladeed*  as 


388  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

will  be  seen  later,  the  North  came  near  to  doing  so,  while 
a  serious  invasion  of  the  North,  unless  overwhelmingly 
successful,  might  really  have  revived  its  spirit.  In  any 
case  Jefferson  Davis,  unlike  Lincoln,  had  no  desire  to  be 
guided  by  his  best  officers.  He  was  for  ever  quarrelling 
with  Joseph  Johnston  and  often  with  Beauregard;  the 
less  capable  Bragg,  though  removed  from  the  West,  was 
now  installed  as  his  chief  adviser  in  Richmond;  and  the 
genius  of  Lee  was  not  encouraged  to  apply  itself  to  the 
larger  strategy  of  the  war. 

At  the  beginning  of  1864  an  advance  from  Chatta- 
nooga  southward   into   the   heart  of  the    Confederate 
country   was    in    contemplation.     Grant    and    Farragut 
wished  that  it  should  be  supported  by  a  joint  military 
and  naval  attack  upon  Mobile,  in  Alabama,  on  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.     Other  considerations  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  prevented  this.     In  1863  Marshal  Bazaine 
had  invaded  Mexico  to  set  up  Louis  Napoleon's  ill-fated 
client  the  Archduke  Maximilian  as  Emperor.     As  the 
so-called  "  Monroe  Doctrine  "  (really  attributable  to  the 
teaching  of  Hamilton  and  the  action  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,   who   was   Secretary  of  State  under   President 
Monroe)    declared,  such  an  extension  of  European  in- 
fluence, more  especially  dynastic  influence,  on  the  Amer- 
ican continent  was  highly  unacceptable  to   the   United 
States.    Many  in  the  North  were  much  excited,  so  much 
so  that  during   1864  a  preposterous  resolution,  which 
meant,  if  anything,  war  with  France,  was  passed  on  the 
motion  of  one  Henry  Winter  Davis.     It  was  of  course 
the  business  of  Lincoln  and  of  Seward,  now  moulded  to 
his  views,  to  avoid  this  disaster,  and  yet,  with  such  dig- 
nity as  the  situation  allowed,  keep  the  French  Govern- 
ment aware  of  the  enmity  which  they  might  one  day 
incur.     They  did  this.     But  they  apprehended  that  the 
French,  with  a  footing  for  the  moment  in  Mexico,  had 
designs  on  Texas;  and  thus,  though  the  Southern  forces 
in  Texas  were  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  Confederacy 
and  there  was  no  haste  for  subduing  them,  it  was  thought 
expedient,  with  an  eye  on  France,  to  assert  the  interest  of 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  389 

the  Union  in  Texas.  General  Banks,  in  Louisiana,  was 
sent  to  Texas  with  the  forces  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  sent  to  Mobile.  His  various  endeavours  ended 
in  May,  1864,  with  the  serious  defeat  of  an  expedition 
up  the  Red  River.  This  defeat  gave  great  annoyance  to 
the  North  and  made  an  end  of  Banks'  reputation.  It 
might  conceivably  have  had  a  calamitous  sequel  in  the 
capture  by  the  South  of  Admiral  Porter's  river  flotilla, 
which  accompanied  Banks,  and  the  consequent  undoing 
of  the  conquest  of  the  Mississippi.  As  it  was  it  wasted 
much  force. 

Before  Grant  could  safely  launch  his  forces  southward 
from  Chattanooga  against  Johnston,  it  was  necessary  to 
deal  in  some  way  with  the  Confederate  force  still  at  large 
in  Mississippi.  Grant  determined  to  do  this  by  the 
destruction  of  the  railway  system  by  which  alone  it  could 
move  eastward.  For  this  purpose  he  left  Thomas  to 
hold  Chattanooga,  while  Sherman  was  sent  to  Meridian, 
the  chief  railway  centre  in  the  Southern  part  of  Missis- 
sippi. In  February  Sherman  arrived  there,  and,  though 
a  subsidiary  force,  sent  from  Memphis  on  a  similar  but 
less  important  errand  somewhat  further  north,  met  with 
a  severe  repulse,  he  was  able  unmolested  to  do  such  dam- 
age to  the  lines  around  Meridian  as  to  secure  Grant's 
purpose. 

There  was  yet  a  further  preliminary  to  the  great  final 
struggle.  On  March  i,  1864,  pursuant  to  an  Act  of 
Congress  which  was  necessary  for  this  object,  Lincoln 
conferred  upon  Grant  the  rank  of  Lieutenant-General, 
never  held  by  any  one  else  since  Washington,  for  it  was 
only  brevet  rank  that  was  conferred  on  Scott.  There- 
with Grant  took  the  command,  under  the  President,  of 
all  the  Northern  armies.  Grant  came  to  Washington  to 
receive  his  new  honour.  He  had  taken  leave  of  Sherman 
in  an  interchange  of  letters  which  it  is  good  to  read;  but 
he  had  intended  to  return  to  the  West.  Sherman,  who 
might  have  desired  the  command  in  the  West  for  himself, 
had  unselfishly  pressed  him  to  return.  He  feared  that 
the  dreaded  politicians  would  in  some  way  hurt  Grant, 


390  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  that  he  would  be  thwarted  by  them,  become  dis- 
gusted, and  retire;  they  did  hurt  him,  but  not  then,  nor 
in  the  way  that  Sherman  had  expected.  Grant,  however, 
could  trust  Sherman  to  carry  out  the  work  he  wanted 
done  in  the  West,  and  he  now  saw  that,  as  Lincoln  might 
have  told  him  and  possibly  did,  the  work  he  wanted  done 
in  the  East  must  be  done  by  him.  He  went  West  again 
for  a  few  days  only,  to  settle  his  plans  with  Sherman. 
Sherman  with  his  army  of  100,000  was  to  follow  John- 
ston's army  of  about  60,000,  wherever  it  went,  till  he 
destroyed  it.  Grant  with  his  120,000  was  to  keep  up  an 
equally  unfaltering  fight  with  Lee's  army,  also  of  60,000. 
There  was,  of  course,  nothing  original  about  this  con- 
ception except  the  idea,  fully  present  to  both  men's  minds, 
of  the  risk  and  sacrifice  with  which  it  was  worth  while 
to  carry  it  out.  Lincoln  and  Grant  had  never  met  till 
this  month.  Grant  at  the  first  encounter  was  evidently 
somewhat  on  his  guard.  He  was  prepared  to  like  Lincoln, 
but  he  was  afraid  of  mistaken  dictation  from  him,  and 
determined  to  discourage  it.  Also  Stanton  had  advised 
him  that  Lincoln,  out  of  mere  good  nature,  would  talk 
unwisely  of  any  plans  discussed  with  him.  This  was  prob- 
ably quite  unjust.  Stanton,  in  order  to  keep  politicians 
and  officers  in  their  places,  was  accustomed  to  bite  off 
the  noses  of  all  comers.  Lincoln,  on  the  contrary,  would 
talk  to  all  sorts  of  people  with  a  readiness  which  was 
sometimes  astonishing,  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
method  in  this — he  learnt  something  from  these  people 
all  the  time — and  he  certainly  had  a  very  great  power  of 
keeping  his  own  counsel  when  he  chose.  In  any  case, 
when  Grant  at  the  end  of  April  left  Washington  for  the 
front,  he  parted  with  Lincoln  on  terms  of  mutual  trust 
which  never  afterwards  varied.  Lincoln  in  fact,  satisfied 
as  to  his  general  purpose,  had  been  happy  to  leave  him 
to  make  his  plans  for  himself.  He  wrote  to  Grant: 
"  Not  expecting  to  see  you  again  before  the  spring  cam- 
paign begins,  I  wish  to  express  in  this  way  my  entire  sat- 
isfaction with  what  you  have  done  up  to  this  time  so  far 
as  I  understand  it.  The  particulars  of  your  plan  I  neither 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  391 

know  nor  seek  to  know.  You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant, 
and,  pleased  with  this,  I  wish  not  to  obtrude  any  con- 
straints or  restraints  upon  you.  While  I  am  very  anxious 
that  any  great  disaster  or  capture  of  our  men  in  great 
numbers  shall  be  avoided,  I  know  these  points  are  less 
likely  to  escape  your  attention  than  they  would  be  mine. 
If  there  is  anything  wanting  which  is  within  my  power  to 
give,  do  not  fail  to  let  me  know  it.  And  now,  with  a 
brave  army  and  a  just  cause,  may  God  sustain  you." 
Grant  replied:  "  From  my  first  entrance  into  the  volun- 
teer service  of  the  country  to  the  present  day  I  have  never 
had  cause  of  complaint — have  never  expressed  or  implied 
a  complaint  against  the  Administration,  or  the  Secretary 
of  War,  for  throwing  any  embarrassment  in  the  way  of 
my  vigorously  prosecuting  what  appeared  to  me  my  duty. 
Indeed,  since  the  promotion  which  placed  me  in  command 
of  all  the  armies,  and  in  view  of  the  great  responsibility 
and  importance  of  success,  I  have  been  astonished  at  the 
readiness  with  which  everything  asked  for  has  been 
yielded,  without  even  an  explanation  being  asked.  Should 
my  success  be  less  than  I  desire  or  expect,  the  least  I  can 
say  is,  the  fault  is  not  with  you."  At  this  point  the  real 
responsibility  of  Lincoln  in  regard  to  military  events  be- 
came comparatively  small,  and  to  the  end  of  the  war 
those  events  may  be  traced  with  even  less  detail  than  has 
hitherto  been  necessary. 

Upon  joining  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  Grant  retained 
Meade,  with  whom  he  was  pleased,  in  a  somewhat  anom- 
alous position  under  him  as  commander  of  that  army. 
"  Wherever  Lee  goes,"  he  told  him,  "  there  you  will  go 
too."  His  object  of  attack  was,  in  agreement  with  the 
opinion  which  Lincoln  had  from  an  early  date  formed, 
Lee's  army.  If  Lee  could  be  compelled,  or  should  choose, 
to  shut  himself  up  in  Richmond,  as  did  happen,  then 
Richmond  would  become  an  object  of  attack,  but  not 
otherwise.  Grant,  however,  hoped  that  he  might  force 
Lee  to  give  him  battle  in  the  open.  In  the  open  or  be- 
hind entrenchments,  he  meant  to  fight  him,  reckoning 
that  if  he  lost  double  the  number  that  Lee  did,  his  own 


392  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

loss  could  easily  be  made  up,  but  Lee's  would  be  irrepa- 
rable. His  hope  was  to  a  large  extent  disappointed.  He 
had  to  do  with  a  greater  general  than  himself,  who,  with 
his  men,  knew  every  inch  of  a  tangled  country.  In  the 
engagements  which  now  followed,  Grant's  men  were  con- 
stantly being  hurled  against  chosen  positions,  entrenched 
and  with  the  new  device  of  wire  entanglements  in  front 
of  them.  "  I  mean,"  he  wrote,  "  to  fight  it  out  on  this 
line  if  it  takes  all  summer."  It  took  summer,  autumn, 
winter,  and  the  early  spring.  Once  across  the  Rapidan 
he  was  in  the  tract  of  scrubby  jungle  called  the  Wilder- 
ness. He  had  hoped  to  escape  out  of  this  unopposed  and 
at  the  same  time  to  turn  Lee's  right  by  a  rapid  march  to 
his  own  left.  But  he  found  Lee  in  his  way.  On  May  5 
and  6  there  was  stubborn  and  indecisive  fighting,  with  a 
loss  to  Grant  of  17,660  and  to  Lee  of  perhaps  over 
10,000 — from  Grant's  point  of  view  something  gained. 
Then  followed  a  further  movement  to  the  left  to  out- 
flank Lee.  Again  Lee  was  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  a 
chosen  position  of  his  own  near  Spottsylvania  Court 
House.  Here  on  the  five  days  from  May  8  to  May  12 
the  heavy  fighting  was  continued,  with  a  total  loss  to 
Grant  of  over  18,000  and  probably  a  proportionate  loss 
to  Lee.  Another  move  by  Grant  to  the  left  now  caused 
Lee  to  fall  back  to  a  position  beyond  the  North  Anna 
River,  on  which  an  attack  was  made  but  speedily  given 
up.  Further  movements  in  the  same  general  direction, 
but  without  any  such  serious  fighting — Grant  still  en- 
deavouring to  turn  Lee's  right,  Lee  still  moving  so  as  to 
cover  Richmond — brought  Grant  by  the  end  of  the  month 
to  Cold  Harbour,  some  ten  miles  east  by  north  of  Rich- 
mond, close  upon  the  scene  of  McClellan's  misadventures. 
Meanwhile  Grant  had  caused  an  expedition  under  Gen- 
eral Butler  to  go  by  sea  up  the  James,  and  to  land  a  little 
south  of  Richmond,  which,  with  the  connected  fortress 
of  Petersburg,  twenty-two  miles  to  the  south  of  it,  had 
only  a  weak  garrison  left.  Butler  was  a  man  with  re- 
markable powers  of  self-advertisement;  he  had  now  a 
very  good  chance  of  taking  Petersburg,  but  his  expedition 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  393 

failed  totally.  From  June  i  to  June  3  Grant  was  occu- 
pied on  the  most  disastrous  enterprise  of  his  career,  a 
hopeless  attack  upon  a  strong  entrenched  position,  which, 
with  the  lesser  encounters  that  took  place  within  the  next 
few  days,  cost  the  North  14,000  men,  against  a  loss  to 
the  South  which  has  been  put  as  low  as  1,700.  It  was 
the  one  battle  which  Grant  regretted  having  fought.  He 
gave  up  the  hope  of  a  fight  with  Lee  on  advantageous 
conditions  outside  Richmond.  On  June  12  he  suddenly 
moved  his  army  across  the  James  to  the  neighbourhood 
of  City  Point,  east  of  Petersburg.  Lee  must  now  stand 
siege  in  Richmond  and  Petersburg.  Had  he  now  marched 
north  against  Washington,  Grant  would  have  been  after 
him  and  would  have  secured  for  his  vastly  larger  force 
the  battle  in  the  open  which  he  had  so  far  vainly  sought. 
Yet  another  disappointment  followed.  On  July  30  an 
attempt  was  made  to  carry  Petersburg  by  assault  imme- 
diately after  the  explosion  of  an  enormous  mine.  It  failed 
with  heavy  loss,  through  the  fault  of  the  amiable  but  in- 
judicious Burnside,  who  now  passed  into  civil  life,  and 
of  the  officers  under  him.  The  siege  was  to  be  a  long 
affair.  In  reality,  for  all  the  disappointment,  and  in  spite 
of  Grant's  confessed  mistake  at  Cold  Harbour,  his  grim 
plan  was  progressing.  The  force  which  the  South  could 
ill  spare  was  being  worn  down,  and  Grant  was  in  a  posi- 
tion in  which,  though  he  might  have  got  there  at  less  cost, 
and  though  the  end  would  not  be  yet,  the  end  was  sure. 
His  army  was  for  the  time  a  good  deal  shaken,  and  the 
estimation  in  which  the  West  Point  officers  held  him  sank 
low.  His  own  determination  was  quite  unshaken,  and, 
though  Lincoln  hinted  somewhat  mildly  that  these  enor- 
mous losses  ought  not  to  recur,  his  confidence  in  Grant 
was  unabated,  too. 

People  in  Washington  who  had  watched  all  this  with 
alternations  of  feeling  that  ended  in  dejection  had  had 
another  trial  to  their  nerves  early  in  July.  The  Northern 
General  Sigel,  who  commanded  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  protecting  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railway,  had  marched  southward  in  June  in  pursuance 


394  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  a  subsidiary  part  of  .Grant's  scheme,  but  in  a  careless 
and  rather  purposeless  manner.  General  Early,  detached 
by  Lee  to  deal  with  him,  defeated  him;  outmanoeuvred 
and  defeated  General  Hunter,  who  was  sent  to  super- 
sede him;  overwhelmed  with  superior  force  General  Lew 
Wallace,  who  stood  in  his  way  further  on ;  and  upon  July 
ii  appeared  before  Washington  itself.  The  threat  to 
Washington  had  been  meant  as  no  more  than  a  threat, 
but  the  garrison  was  largely  made  up  of  recruits;  rein- 
forcements to  it  sent  back  by  Grant  arrived  only  on  the 
same  day  as  Early,  and  if  that  enterprising  general  had 
not  wasted  some  previous  days  there  might  have  been  a 
chance  that  he  could  get  into  Washington,  though  not 
that  he  could  hold  it.  As  it  was  he  attacked  one  of  the 
Washington  forts.  Lincoln  was  present,  exhibiting,  till 
the  officers  there  insisted  on  his  retiring,  the  indifference 
to  personal  danger  which  he  showed  on  other  occasions 
too.  The  attack  was  soon  given  up,  and  in  a  few  days 
Early  had  escaped  back  across  the  Potomac,  leaving  in 
Grant's  mind  a  determination  that  the  Shenandoah  Valley 
should  cease  to  be  so  useful  to  the  South. 

Sherman  set  out  from  Chattanooga  on  the  day  when 
Grant  crossed  the  Rapidan.  Joseph  Johnston  barred  his 
way  in  one  entrenched  position  after  another.  Sherman, 
with  greater  caution  than  Grant,  or  perhaps  with  greater 
facilities  of  ground,  manoeuvred  him  out  of  each  position 
in  turn,  pushing  him  slowly  back  along  the  line  of  the 
railway  towards  Atlanta,  the  great  manufacturing  centre 
of  Georgia,  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  south  by  east 
from  Chattanooga.  Only  once,  towards  the  end  of  June 
at  Kenesaw  Mountain,  some  twenty  miles  north  of  At- 
lanta, did  he  attack  Johnston's  entrenchments,  causing 
himself  some  unnecessary  loss  and  failing  in  his  direct 
attack  on  them,  but  probably  thinking  it  necessary  to 
show  that  he  would  attack  whenever  needed.  Johnston 
has  left  a  name  as  a  master  of  defensive  warfare,  and 
doubtless  delayed  and  hampered  Sherman  as  much  as  he 
could.  Jefferson  Davis  angrily  and  unwisely  sent  General 
Hood  to  supersede  him.  This  less  prudent  officer  gave 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  395 

battle  several  times,  bringing  up  the  Confederate  loss 
before  Atlanta  fell  to  34,000  against  30,000  on  the  other 
side,  and  being,  by  great  skill  on  Sherman's  part,  com- 
pelled to  evacuate  Atlanta  on  September  2. 

By  this  time  there  had  occurred  the  last  and  most 
brilliant  exploit  of  old  Admiral  Farragut,  who  on  August 
5  in  a  naval  engagement  of  extraordinarily  varied  inci- 
dent, had  possessed  himself  of  the  harbour  of  Mobile, 
with  its  forts,  though  the  town  remained  as  a  stronghold 
in  Confederate  hands  and  prevented  a  junction  with  Sher- 
man which  would  have  quite  cut  the  Confederacy  in  two. 

Nearer  Washington,  too,  a  memorable  campaign  was 
in  process.  For  three  weeks  after  Early's  unwelcome 
visit,  military  mismanagement  prevailed  near  Washing- 
ton. Early  was  able  to  turn  on  his  pursuers,  and  a  further 
raid,  this  time  into  Pennsylvania,  took  place.  Grant  was 
too  far  off  to  exercise  control  except  through  a  sufficiently 
able  subordinate,  which  Hunter  was  not.  Halleck,  as  in 
a  former  crisis,  did  not  help  matters.  Lincoln,  though 
at  this  time  he  issued  a  large  new  call  for  recruits,  was 
unwilling  any  longer  to  give  military  orders.  Just  now 
his  political  anxieties  had  reached  their  height.  His  judg- 
ment was  never  firmer,  but  friends  thought  his  strength 
was  breaking  under  the  strain.  On  this  and  on  all 
grounds  he  was  certainly  wise  to  decline  direct  interfer- 
ence in  military  affairs.  On  August  I  Grant  ordered 
General  Philip  H.  Sheridan  to  the  Shenandoah  on  tem- 
porary duty,  expressing  a  wish  that  he  should  be  put  "  in 
command  of  all  the  troops  in  the  field,  with  instructions 
to  put  himself  south  of  the  enemy  or  follow  him  to  the 
death."  Lincoln  telegraphed  to  Grant,  quoting  this 
despatch  and  adding,  "  This  I  think  is  exactly  right;  but 
please  look  over  the  despatches  you  may  have  received 
from  here  even  since  you  made  that  order  and  see  if  there 
is  any  idea  in  the  head  of  any  one  here  of  putting  our 
army  south  of  the  enemy  or  following  him  to  the  death 
in  any  direction.  I  repeat  to  you  it  will  neither  be  done 
nor  attempted  unless  you  watch  it  every  day  and  hour  and 
force  it."  Grant  now  came  to  Hunter's  army  and  gently 


396  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

placed  Sheridan  in  that  general's  place.  The  operations 
of  that  autumn,  which  established  Sheridan's  fame  and 
culminated  in  his  final  defeat  of  Early  at  Cedar  Creek 
on  October  19,  made  him  master  of  all  the  lower  part  of 
the  valley.  Before  he  retired  into  winter  quarters  he  had 
so  laid  waste  the  resources  of  that  unfortunate  district 
that  Richmond  could  no  longer  draw  supplies  from  it, 
nor  could  it  again  support  a  Southern  army  in  a  sally 
against  the  North. 

In  the  month  of  November  Sherman  began  a  new  and 
extraordinary  movement,  of  which  the  conception  was 
all  his  own,  sanctioned  with  reluctance  by  Grant,  and 
viewed  with  anxiety  by  Lincoln,  though  he  maintained 
his  absolute  resolve  not  to  interfere.  He  had  fortified 
himself  in  Atlanta,  removing  its  civil  inhabitants,  in  an 
entirely  humane  fashion,  to  places  of  safety,  and  he  had 
secured  a  little  rest  for  his  army.  But  he  lay  far  south 
in  the  heart  of  what  he  called  "Jeff  Davis'  Empire," 
and  Hood  could  continually  harass  him  by  attacks  on  his 
communications.  Hood,  now  supervised  by  Beauregard, 
was  gathering  reinforcements,  and  Sherman  learnt  that 
he  contemplated  a  diversion  by  invading  Tennessee. 
Sherman  determined  to  divide  his  forces,  to  send  Thomas 
far  back  into  Tennessee  with  sufficient  men,  as  he  calcu- 
lated, to  defend  it,  and  himself  with  the  rest  of  his  army 
to  set  out  for  the  eastern  sea-coast,  wasting  no  men  on 
the  maintenance  of  his  communications,  but  living  on 
the  country  and  "  making  the  people  of  Georgia  feel  the 
weight  of  the  war."  He  set  out  for  the  East  on  Novem- 
ber 15.  Hood,  at  Beauregard's  orders,  shortly  marched 
off  for  the  North,  where  the  cautious  Thomas  awaited 
events  within  the  fortifications  of  Nashville.  At  Frank- 
lin, in  the  heart  of  Tennessee,  about  twenty  miles  south 
of  Nashville,  Hood's  army  suffered  badly  in  an  attack 
upon  General  Schofield,  whom  Thomas  had  left  to  check 
his  advance  while  further  reinforcements  came  to  Nash- 
ville. Schofield  fell  back  slowly  on  Thomas,  Hood  rashly 
pressing  after  him  with  a  small  but  veteran  army  now 
numbering  44,000.  Grant  and  the  Washington  author- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  397 

ities  viewed  with  much  concern  an  invasion  which  Thomas 
had  suffered  to  proceed  so  far.  Grant  had  not  shared 
Sherman's  faith  in  Thomas.  He  now  repeatedly  urged 
him  to  act,  but  Thomas  had  his  own  views  and  obstinately 
bided  his  time.  Days  followed  when  frozen  sleet  made 
an  advance  impossible.  Grant  had  already  sent  Logan 
to  supersede  Thomas,  and,  growing  still  more  anxious, 
had  started  to  come  west  himself,  when  the  news  reached 
him  of  a  battle  on  December  .15  and  16  in  which  Thomas 
had  fallen  on  Hood,  completely  routing  him,  taking  on 
these  days  and  in  the  pursuit  that  followed  no  less  than 
13,000  prisoners. 

There  was  a  song,  "As  we  go  marching  through 
Georgia,"  which  was  afterwards  famous,  and  which  Sher- 
man could  not  endure.  What  his  men  most  often  sang, 
while  they  actually  were  marching  through  Georgia,  was 
another,  and  of  its  kind  a  great  song: — 

"  John  Brown's  body  lies  amouldering  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  goes  marching  on. 
Glory,  glory,  Hallelujah." 

Their  progress  was  of  the  nature  of  a  frolic,  though  in 
one  way  a  very  stern  frolic.  They  had  little  trouble  from 
the  small  and  scattered  Confederate  forces  that  lay  near 
their  route.  They  industriously  and  ingeniously  destroyed 
the  railway  track  of  the  South,  heating  the  rails  and  twist- 
ing them  into  knots;  and  the  rich  country  of  Georgia, 
which  had  become  the  chief  granary  of  the  Confederates, 
was  devastated  as  they  passed,  for  a  space  fifty  or  sixty 
miles  broad,  by  the  destruction  of  all  the  produce  they 
could  not  consume.  This  was  done  under  control  by 
organised  forage  parties.  Reasonable  measures  were 
taken  to  prevent  private  pillage  of  houses.  No  doubt  it 
happened.  Sherman's  able  cavalry  commander  earned  a 
bad  name,  and  "  Uncle  Billy,"  as  they  called  him  to  his 
face,  clearly  had  a  soft  corner  in  his  heart  for  the  light- 
hearted  and  light-fingered  gentlemen  called  "  bummers  " 
(a  "  bummer,"  says  the  Oxford  Dictionary,  "  is  one  who 
quits  the  ranks  and  goes  on  an  independent  foraging  ex- 


398  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pedition  on  his  own  account").  They  were,  incidentally, 
Sherman  found,  good  scouts.  But  the  serious  crimes 
committed  were  very  few,  judged  by  the  standard  of 
the  ordinary  civil  population.  The  authentic  complaints 
recorded  relate  to  such  matters  as  the  smashing  of  a 
grand  piano  or  the  disappearance  of  some  fine  old 
Madeira.  Thus  the  suffering  caused  to  individuals  was 
probably  not  extreme,  and  a  long  continuance  of  the  war 
was  rendered  almost  impossible.  A  little  before  Christ- 
mas Day,  1864,  Sherman  had  captured,  with  slight  oppo- 
sition, the  city  of  Savannah,  on  the  Atlantic,  with  many 
guns  and  other  spoils,  and  was  soon  ready  to  turn  north- 
wards on  the  last  lap  of  his  triumphant  course.  Lincoln's 
letter  of  thanks  characteristically  confessed  his  earlier 
unexpressed  and  unfulfilled  fears. 

Grant  was  proceeding  all  the  time  with  his  pressure  on 
the  single  large  fortress  which  Richmond  and  Petersburg 
together  constituted.  Its  circuit  was  far  too  great  for 
complete  investment.  His  efforts  were  for  a  time  di- 
rected to  seizing  the  three  railway  lines  which  converged 
from  the  south  on  Petersburg  and  to  that  extent  cutting 
off  the  supplies  of  the  enemy.  But  he  failed  to  get  hold 
of  the  most  important  of  these  railways.  He  settled 
down  to  the  slow  process  of  entrenching  his  own  lines 
securely  and  extending  the  entrenchment  further  and 
further  round  the  south  side  of  Petersburg.  Lee  was 
thus  being  forced  to  extend  the  position  held  by  his  own 
small  army  further  and  further.  In  time  the  lines  would 
crack  and  the  end  come. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  despair  was  invading  the 
remnant  of  the  Confederacy;  supplies  began  to  run  short 
in  Richmond,  recruiting  had  ceased,  desertion  was  in- 
creasing. Before  the  story  of  its  long  resistance  closes 
it  is  better  to  face  the  gravest  charge  against  the  South. 
That  charge  relates  to  the  misery  inflicted  upon  many 
thousands  of  Northern  prisoners  in  certain  prisons  or 
detention  camps  of  the  South.  The  alleged  horrors  were 
real  and  were  great.  The  details  should  not  be  com- 
memorated, but  it  is  right  to  observe  that  the  pitiable 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  399 

condition  in  which  the  stricken  survivors  of  this  captivity 
returned,  and  the  tale  they  had  to  tell,  caused  the  bitter- 
ness which  might  be  noted  afterwards  in  some  North- 
erners. The  guilt  lay  mainly  with  a  few  subordinate  but 
uncontrolled  officials.  In  some  degree  it  must  have  been 
shared  by  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  Administration,  though 
a  large  allowance  should  be  made  for  men  so  sorely 
driven.  But  it  affords  no  ground  whatever,  as  more  for- 
tunate prisoners  taken  by  the  Confederates  have  some- 
times testified,  for  any  general  imputation  of  cruelty 
against  the  Southern  officers,  soldiers,  or  people.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  record  of  the  war  which  dishonours  the 
South,  nothing  to  restrain  the  tribute  to  its  heroism  which 
is  due  from  a  foreign  writer,  and  which  is  irrepressible 
in  the  case  of  a  writer  who  rejoices  that  the  Confederacy 
failed. 

4.   The  Second  Election  of  Lincoln:    1864. 

Having  the  general  for  whom  he  had  long  sought, 
Lincoln  could  now  be  in  military  matters  little  more  than 
the  most  intelligent  onlooker;  he  could  maintain  the  atti- 
tude, congenial  to  him  where  he  dealt  with  skilled  men, 
that  when  he  differed  from  them  they  probably  knew  bet- 
ter than  he.  This  was  well,  for  in  1864  his  political  anx- 
ieties became  greater  than  they  had  been  since  war  de- 
clared itself  at  Fort  Sumter.  Whole  States  which  had 
belonged  to  the  Confederacy  were  now  securely  held  by 
the  Union  armies,  and  the  difficult  problem  of  their  gov- 
ernment was  approaching  its  final  settlement.  It  seemed 
that  the  war  should  soon  end;  so  the  question  of  peace 
was  pressed  urgently.  Moreover,  the  election  of  a  Pres- 
ident was  due  in  the  autumn,  and,  strange  as  it  is,  the 
issue  was  to  be  whether,  with  victory  in  their  grasp,  the 
victors  should  themselves  surrender. 

It  was  not  given  to  Lincoln  after  all  to  play  a  great 
part  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  South ;  that  was  reserved 
for  much  rougher  and  much  weaker  hands.  But  the 
lines  on  which  he  had  moved  from  the  first  are  of  interest. 
West  Virginia,  with  its  solid  Unionist  population,  was 


400  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

simply  allowed  to  form  itself  into  an  ordinary  new  State. 
But  matters  were  not  so  simple  where  the  Northern 
occupation  was  insecure,  or  where  a  tiny  fraction  of  a 
State  was  held,  or  where  a  large  part  of  the  people  leaned 
to  the  Confederacy.  Military  governors  were  of  course 
appointed;  in  Tennessee  this  position  was  given  to  a 
strong  Unionist,  Andrew  Johnson,  who  was  already  Sen- 
ator for  that  State.  In  Louisiana  and  elsewhere  Lincoln 
encouraged  the  citizens  who  would  unreservedly  accept 
the  Union  to  organise  State  Governments  for  themselves. 
Where  they  did  so  there  was  friction  between  them  and 
the  Northern  military  governor  who  was  still  indispensa- 
ble. There  was  also  to  the  end  triangular  trouble  between 
the  factions  in  Missouri  and  the  general  commanding 
there.  To  these  little  difficulties,  which  were  of  course 
unceasing,  Lincoln  applied  the  firmness  and  tact  which 
were  no  longer  surprising  in  him,  with  a  pleasing  mixture 
of  good  temper  and  healthy  irritation.  But  further  diffi- 
culties lay  in  the  attitude  of  Congress,  which  was  con- 
cerned in  the  matter  because  each  House  could  admit  or 
reject  the  Senators  or  Representatives  claiming  to  sit  for 
a  Southern  State.  There  were  questions  about  slavery 
in  such  States.  Lincoln,  as  we  have  seen,  had  desired,  if 
he  could,  to  bring  about  the  abolition  of  slavery  through 
gradual  and  through  local  action,  and  he  had  wished  to 
see  the  franchise  given  only  to  the  few  educated  negroes. 
Nothing  came  of  this,  but  it  kept  up  the  suspicion  of 
Radicals  in  Congress  that  he  was  not  sound  on  slavery; 
and,  apart  from  slavery,  the  whole  question  of  the  terms 
on  which  people  lately  in  arms  against  the  country  could 
be  admitted  as  participators  in  the  government  of  the 
country  was  one  on  which  statesmen  in  Congress  had 
their  own  very  important  point  of  view.  Lincoln's  main 
wish  was  that,  with  the  greatest  speed  and  the  least  heat 
spent  on  avoidable  controversy,  State  government  of 
spontaneous  local  growth  should  spring  up  in  the  recon- 
quered South.  "  In  all  available  ways,"  he  had  written 
to  one  of  his  military  governors,  "  give  the  people  a 
chance  to  express  their  wishes  at  these  elections.  Follow 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  401 

forms  of  law  as  far  as  convenient,  but  at  all  events  get 
the  expression  of  the  largest  number  of  people  possible." 
Above  all  he  was  afraid  lest  in  the  Southern  elections  to 
Congress  that  very  thing  should  happen  which  after  his 
death  did  happen.  "  To  send  a  parcel  of  Northern  men 
here  as  representatives,  elected,  as  would  be  understood 
(and  perhaps  really  so),  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
would  be  disgraceful  and  outrageous."  For  a  time  he  and 
Congress  worked  together  well  enough,  but  sharp  dis- 
agreement arose  in  1864.  He  had  propounded  a  partic- 
ular plan  for  the  reconstruction  of  Southern  States.  Sen- 
ator Wade,  the  formidable  Chairman  of  the  Joint 
Committee  on  the  War,  and  Henry  Winter  Davis,  a  keen, 
acrid,  and  fluent  man  who  was  powerful  with  the  House, 
carried  a  Bill  under  which  a  State  could  only  be  recon- 
structed on  their  own  plan,  which  differed  from  Lincoln's. 
The  Bill  came  to  Lincoln  for  signature  in  the  last  hours 
of  the  session,  and,  amidst  frightened  protests  from 
friendly  legislators  then  in  his  room,  he  let  it  lie  there 
unsigned,  till  it  expired  with  the  session,  and  went  on  with 
his  work.  This  was  in  July,  1864;  his  re-election  was 
at  stake.  The  Democrats  were  gaining  ground ;  he  might 
be  giving  extreme  offence  to  the  strongest  Republican. 
"  If  they  choose,"  he  said,  "  to  make  a  point  of  this  I  do 
not  doubt  that  they  can  do  harm  "  (indeed,  those  power- 
ful men  Wade  and  Davis  now  declared  against  his  re- 
election with  ability  and  extraordinary  bitterness)  ;  but 
he  continued:  "At  all  events  I  must  keep  some  con- 
sciousness of  being  somewhere  near  right.  I  must  keep 
some  standard  or  principle  fixed  within  myself."  The 
Bill  would  have  repressed  loyal  efforts  already  made  to 
establish  State  Governments  in  the  South.  It  contained 
also  a  provision  imposing  the  abolition  of  slavery  on 
every  such  reconstructed  State.  This  was  an  attempt  to 
remedy  any  flaw  in  the  constitutional  effect  of  the  Procla- 
mation of  Emancipation.  But  it  was  certainly  in  itself 
flagrantly  unconstitutional;  and  the  only  conclusive  way 
of  abolishing  slavery  was  the  Constitutional  Amendment, 
for  which  Lincoln  was  now  anxious.  This  was  not  a 


402  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pedantic  point,  for  there  might  have  been  great  trouble 
if  the  courts  had  later  found  a  constitutional  flaw  in  some 
negro's  title  to  freedom.  But  the  correctness  of  Lincoln's 
view  hardly  matters.  In  lots  of  little  things,  like  a  tired 
man  who  was  careless  by  nature,  Lincoln  may  perhaps 
have  yielded  to  influence  or  acted  for  his  political  con- 
venience in  ways  which  may  justly  be  censured,  but  it 
would  be  merely  immoral  to  care  whether  he  did  so  or 
did  not,  since  at  the  crisis  of  his  fate  he  could  risk  all  for 
one  scruple.  In  an  earlier  stage  of  his  controversies  with 
the  parties  he  had  written :  "  From  time  to  time  I  have 
done  and  said  what  appeared  to  me  proper  to  do  and 
say.  The  public  knows  it  all.  It  obliges  nobody  to  follow 
me,  and  I  trust  it  obliges  me  to  follow  nobody.  The  Rad- 
icals and  Conservatives  each  agree  with  me  in  some 
things  and  disagree  in  others.  I  could  wish  both  to  agree 
with  me  in  all  things ;  for  then  they  would  agree  with  each 
other,  and  be  too  strong  for  any  foe  from  any  quarter. 
They,  however,  choose  to  do  otherwise,  and  I  do  not 
question  their  right.  I,  too,  shall  do  what  seems  to  be 
my  duty.  I  hold  whoever  commands  in  Missouri  or  else- 
where responsible  to  me  and  not  to  either  Radicals  or 
Conservatives.  It  is  my  duty  to  hear  all;  but  at  last  I 
must,  within  my  sphere,  judge  what  to  do  and  what  to 
forbear." 

In  this  same  month  of  July,  after  the  Confederate 
General  Early's  appearance  before  Washington  had 
given  Lincoln  a  pause  from  political  cares,  another 
trouble  reached  a  point  at  which  it  is  known  to  have  tried 
his  patience  more  than  any  other  trouble  of  his  Presi- 
dency. Peace  after  war  is  not  always  a  matter  of  sub- 
stituting the  diplomatist  for  the  soldier.  When  two  sides 
were  fighting,  one  for  Union  and  the  other  for  Inde- 
pendence, one  or  the  other  had  to  surrender  the  whole 
point  at  issue.  In  this  case  there  might  appear  to  have 
been  a  third  possibility.  The  Southern  States  might  have 
been  invited  to  return  to  the  Union  on  terms  which  ad- 
mitted their  right  to  secede  again  if  they  felt  aggrieved. 
The  invitation  would  in  fact  have  been  refused.  But,  if 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  403 

it  had  been  made  and  accepted,  this  would  have  been  a 
worse  surrender  for  the  North  than  any  mere  acknowl- 
edgment that  the  South  could  not  be  reconquered;  for 
national  unity  from  that  day  to  this  would  have  existed  on 
the  sufferance  of  a  factious  or  a  foreign  majority  in  any 
single  State.  Lincoln  had  faced  this.  He  was  there  to 
restore  the  Union  on  a  firm  foundation.  He  meant  to 
insist  to  the  point  of  pedantry  that,  by  not  so  much  as  a 
word  or  line  from  the  President  or  any  one  seeming  to 
act  for  him,  should  the  lawful  right  of  secession  even 
appear  to  be  acknowledged.  Some  men  would  have  been 
glad  to  hang  Jefferson  Davis  as  a  traitor,  yet  would  have 
been  ready  to  negotiate  with  him  as  with  a  foreign  king. 
Lincoln,  who  would  not  have  hurt  one  hair  of  his  head, 
and  would  have  talked  things  over  with  Mr.  Davis  quite 
pleasantly,  would  have  died  rather  than  treat  with  him  on 
the  footing  that  he  was  head  of  an  independent  Confed- 
eracy. The  blood  shed  might  have  been  shed  for  nothing 
if  he  had  done  so.  But  to  many  men,  in  the  long  agony 
of  the  war  and  its  disappointments,  the  plain  position  be- 
came much  obscured.  The  idea  in  various  forms  that  by 
some  sort  of  negotiation  the  issue  could  be  evaded  began 
to  assert  itself  again  and  again.  The  delusion  was  freely 
propagated  that  the  South  was  ready  to  give  in  if  only 
Lincoln  would  encourage  its  approaches.  It  was  sheer 
delusion.  Jefferson  Davis  said  frankly  to  the  last  that 
the  Confederacy  would  have  "  independence  or  extermi- 
nation," and  though  Stephens  and  many  others  spoke  of 
peace  to  the  electors  in  their  own  States,  Jefferson  Davis 
had  his  army  with  him,  and  the  only  result  which  agita- 
tion against  him  ever  produced  was  that  two  months  be- 
fore the  irreparable  collapse  the  chief  command  under 
him  was  given  to  his  most  faithful  servant  Lee.  But  it 
was  useless  for  Lincoln  to  expose  the  delusion  in  the 
plainest  terms;  it  survived  exposure  and  became  a  danger 
to  Northern  unity. 

Lincoln  therefore  took  a  strange  course,  which  gen- 
erally succeeded.  When  honest  men  came  to  him  and 
said  that  the  South  could  be  induced  to  yield,  he  proposed 


404  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  them  that  they  should  go  to  Jefferson  Davis  and  see 
for  themselves.  The  Chairman  of  the  Republican  organ- 
isation ultimately  approached  Lincoln  on  this  matter  at 
the  request  of  a  strong  committee;  but  he  was  a  sensible 
man  whom  Lincoln  at  once  converted  by  drafting  the 
precise  message  that  would  have  to  be  sent  to  the  Con- 
federate President.  On  two  earlier  occasions  such  labour- 
ers for  peace  were  allowed  to  go  across  the  lines  and  talk 
with  Davis;  it  could  be  trusted  to  their  honour  to  pre- 
tend to  no  authority;  they  had  interesting  talks  with  the 
great  enemy,  and  made  religious  appeals  to  him  or  en- 
tertained him  with  wild  proposals  for  a  joint  war  on 
France  over  Mexico.  They  returned,  converted  also.  But 
in  July  Horace  Greeley,  the  great  editor,  who  was  too 
opinionated  to  be  quite  honest,  was  somehow  convinced 
that  Southern  agents  at  Niagara,  who  had  really  come 
to  hold  intercourse  with  the  disloyal  group  among  the 
Democrats,  were  "  two  ambassadors  "  from  the  Confed- 
eracy seeking  an  audience  of  Lincoln.  He  wrote  to 
Lincoln,  begging  him  to  receive  them.  Lincoln  caused 
Greeley  to  go  to  Niagara  and  see  the  supposed  ambassa- 
dors himself.  He  gave  him  written  authority  to  bring  to 
him  any  person  with  proper  credentials,  provided,  as  he 
made  plain  in  terms  that  perhaps  were  blunt,  that  the 
basis  of  any  negotiation  should  include  the  recognition 
of  the  Union  and  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  persons 
whom  Greeley  saw  had  no  authority  to  treat  about  any- 
thing. Greeley  in  his  irritation  now  urged  Lincoln  to 
convey  to  Jefferson  Davis  through  these  mysterious  men 
his  readiness  to  receive  them  if  they  were  accredited.  In 
other  words,  the  North  was  to  begin  suing  for  peace — a 
thing  clearly  unwise,  which  Lincoln  refused.  Greeley 
now  involved  Lincoln  in  a  tangled  controversy  to  which 
he  gave  such  a  turn  that,  unless  Lincoln  would  publish 
the  most  passionately  pacific  of  Greeley's  letters,  to  the 
great  discouragement  of  the  public  with  whom  Greeley 
counted,  he  must  himself  keep  silent  on  what  had  passed. 
He  elected  to  keep  silent  while  Greeley  in  his  paper 
criticised  him  as  the  person  responsible  for  the  continu- 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  405 

ance  of  senseless  bloodshed.  This  was  publicly  harmful; 
and,  as  for  its  private  bearing,  the  reputation  of  obsti- 
nate blood-thirstiness  was  certain  to  be  painful  to  Lincoln. 

The  history  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet  has  a  bearing  upon 
what  is  to  follow.  He  ruled  his  Ministers  with  undis- 
puted authority,  talked  with  them  collectively  upon  the 
easiest  terms,  spoke  to  them  as  a  headmaster  to  his  school 
when  they  caballed  against  one  another,  kept  them  in 
some  sort  of  unison  in  a  manner  which  astonished  all 
who  knew  them.  Cameron  had  had  to  retire  early;  so 
did  the  little-known  Caleb  Smith,  who  was  succeeded  in 
his  unimportant  office  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior  by  a 
Mr.  Usher,  who  seems  to  have  been  well  chosen.  Bates, 
the  Attorney-General,  retired,  weary  of  his  work,  towards 
the  end  of  1864,  and  Lincoln  had  the  keen  pleasure  of 
appointing  James  Speed,  the  brother  of  that  unforgotten 
and  greatly  honoured  friend  whom  he  honoured  the  more 
for  his  contentedness  with  private  station.  James  Speed 
himself  was  in  Lincoln's  opinion  "  an  honest  man  and  a 
gentleman,  and  one  of  those  well-poised  men,  not  too 
common  here,  who  are  not  spoiled  by  a  big  office." 

Blair  might  be  regarded  as  a  delightful,  or  equally  as 
an  intolerable  man.  He  attacked  all  manner  of  people 
causelessly  and  violently,  and  earned  implacable  dislike 
from  the  Radicals  in  his  party.  Then  he  frankly  asked 
Lincoln  to  dismiss  him  whenever  it  was  convenient.  There 
came  a  time  when  Lincoln's  re-election  was  in  great  peril, 
and  he  might,  it  was  urged,  have  made  it  sure  by  dis- 
missing Blair.  It  is  significant  that  Lincoln  then  refused 
to  promote  his  own  cause  by  seeming  to  sacrifice  Blair, 
but  later  on,  when  his  own  election  was  fairly  certain,  but 
a  greater  degree  of  unity  in  the  Republican  party  was  to 
be  gained,  did  ask  Blair  to  go;  (Blair's  quarrels,  it  should 
be  added,  had  become  more  and  more  outrageous).  So 
he  went  and  immediately  flung  himself  with  enthusiasm 
into  the  advocacy  of  Lincoln's  cause.  All  the  men  who 
left  Lincoln  remained  his  friends,  except  one  who  will 
shortly  concern  us.  Of  Lincoln's  more  important  min- 
isters Welles  did  his  work  for  the  Navy  industriously  but 


* 
4o6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

unnoted.  Stanton,  on  the  other  hand,  and  Lincoln's  rela- 
tions with  Stanton  are  the  subjects  of  many  pages  of  lit- 
erature. These  two  curious  and  seemingly  incompatible 
men  hit  upon  extraordinary  methods  of  working  together. 
It  can  be  seen  that  Lincoln's  chief  care  in  dealing  with  his 
subordinates  was  to  give  support  and  to  give  free  play  to 
any  man  whose  heart  was  in  his  work.  In  countless  small 
matters  he  would  let  Stanton  disobey  him  and  flout  him 
openly.  ("  Did  Stanton  tell  you  I  was  a  damned  fool? 
Then  I  expect  I  must  be  one,  for  he  is  almost  always 
right  and  generally  says  what  he  means.")  But  every 
now  and  then,  when  he  cared  much  about  his  own  wish, 
he  would  step  in  and  crush  Stanton  flat.  Crowds  of  appli- 
cants to  Lincoln  with  requests  of  a  kind  that  must  be 
granted  sparingly  were  passed  on  to  Stanton,  pleased 
with  the  President,  or  mystified  by  his  sadly  observing 
that  he  had  not  much  influence  with  this  Administration 
but  hoped  to  have  more  with  the  next.  Stanton  always 
refused  them.  He  enjoyed  doing  it.  Yet  it  seems  a  low 
trick  to  have  thus  indulged  his  taste  for  unpopularity,  till 
one  discovers  that,  when  Stanton  might  have  been  blamed 
seriously  and  unfairly,  Lincoln  was  very  careful  to  shoul- 
der the  blame  himself.  The  gist  of  their  mutual  dealings 
was  that  the  hated  Stanton  received  a  thinly  disguised, 
but  quite  unfailing  support,  and  that  hated  or  applauded, 
ill  or  well,  wrong  in  this  detail  and  right  in  that,  he  abode 
in  his  department  and  drove,  and  drove,  and  drove,  and 
worshipped  Lincoln.  To  Seward,  who  played  first  and 
last  a  notable  part  in  history,  and  who  all  this  time  con- 
ducted foreign  affairs  under  Lincoln  without  any  mishap 
in  the  end,  one  tribute  is  due.  When  he  had  not  a  master 
it  is  said  that  his  abilities  were  made  useless  by  his  ego- 
tism; yet  it  can  be  seen  that,  with  his  especial  cause  to  be 
jealous  of  Lincoln,  he  could  not  even  conceive  how  men 
let  private  jealousy  divide  them  in  the  performance  of 
duty. 

It  was  otherwise  with  the  ablest  man  in  the  Cabinet. 
Salmon  P.  Chase  must  really  have  been  a  good  man  in 
the  days  before  he  fell  in  love  with  his  own  goodness. 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  407 

Lincoln  and  the  country  had  confidence  in  his  manage- 
ment of  the  Treasury,  and  Lincoln  thought  more  highly 
of  his  general  ability  than  of  that  of  any  other  man  about 
him.  He,  for  his  part,  distrusted  and  despised  Lincoln. 
Those  who  read  Lincoln's  important  letters  and  speeches 
see  in  him  at  once  a  great  gentleman;  there  were  but 
few  among  the  really  well-educated  men  of  America  who 
made  much  of  his  lacking  some  of  the  minor  points  of 
gentility  to  which  most  of  them  were  born;  but  of  these 
few  Chase  betrayed  himself  as  one.  At  the  beginning  of 
1864  Chase  was  putting  it  about  that  he  had  himself  no 
wish  to  be  President,  but — ;  that  of  course  he  was  loyal 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  but — ;  and  so  forth.  He  had,  a's  indeed 
he  deserved,  admirers  who  wished  he  should  be  Presi- 
dent, and  early  in  the  year  some  of  them  expressed  this 
wish  in  a  manifesto.  Chase  wrote  to  Lincoln  that  this 
was  not  his  own  doing;  Lincoln  replied  that  he  himself 
knew  as  little  of  these  things  "  as  my  friends  will  allow 
me  to  know."  To  those  who  spoke  to  him  of  Chase's 
intrigues  he  only  said  that  Chase  would  in  some  ways 
make  a  very  good  President,  and  he  hoped  they  would 
never  have  a  worse  President  than  he.  The  movement  in 
favour  of  Chase  collapsed  very  soon,  and  it  evidently 
had  no  effect  on  Lincoln.  Chase,  however,  was  begin- 
ning to  foster  grievances  of  his  own  against  Lincoln. 
These  related  always  to  appointments  in  the  service  of 
the  Treasury.  He  professed  a  horror  of  party  influences 
in  appointments,  and  imputed  corrupt  motives  to  Lincoln 
in  such  matters.  He  shared  the  sound  ideas  of  the  later 
civil  service  reformers,  though  he  was  far  too  easily  man- 
aged by  a  low  class  of  flatterers  to  have  been  of  the 
least  use  in  carrying  them  out.  Lincoln  would  certainly 
not  at  that  crisis  have  permitted  strife  over  civil  service 
reform,  but  some  of  his  admirers  have  probably  gone 
too  far  in  claiming  him  as  a  sturdy  supporter  of  the  old 
school  who  would  despise  the  reforming  idea.  Letters 
of  his  much  earlier  betray  his  doubts  as  to  the  old  sys- 
tem, and  he  was  exactly  the  man  who  in  quieter  times 
could  have  improved  matters  with  the  least  possible  fuss. 


4o8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

However  that  may  be,  all  the  tiresome  circumstances  of 
Chase's  differences  with  him  are  well  known,  and  in  these 
instances  Lincoln  was  clearly  in  the  right,  and  Chase 
quarrelled  only  because  he  could  not  force  upon  him  ap- 
pointments that  would  have  created  fury.  Once  Chase 
was  overruled  and  wrote  his  resignation.  Lincoln  went 
to  him  with  the  resignation  in  his  hand,  treated  him  with 
simple  affection  for  a  man  whom  he  still  liked,  and  made 
him  take  it  back.  Later  on  Chase  got  his  own  way  on 
the  whole,  but  was  angry  and  sent  another  resignation. 
Some  one  heard  of  it  and  came  to  Lincoln  to  say  that  the 
loss  of  Chase  would  cause  a  financial  panic.  Lincoln's 
answer  was  to  this  effect :  "  Chase  thinks  he  has  become 
indispensable  to  the  country;  that  his  intimate  friends 
know  it,  and  he  cannot  comprehend  why  the  country  does 
not  understand  it.  He  also  thinks  he  ought  to  be  Presi- 
dent; has  no  doubt  whatever  about  that.  It  is  inconceiv- 
able to  him  why  people  do  not  rise  as  one  man  and  say 
so.  He  is  a  great  statesman,  and  at  the  bottom  a  patriot. 
Ordinarily  he  discharges  the  duties  of  a  public  office  with 
greater  ability  than  any  man  I  know.  Mind,  I  say  '  ordi- 
narily,' but  he  has  become  irritable,  uncomfortable,  so 
that  he  is  never  perfectly  happy  unless  he  is  thoroughly 
miserable  and  able  to  make  everybody  else  just  as  un- 
comfortable as  he  is  himself.  He  is  either  determined 
to  annoy  me,  or  that  I  shall  pat  him  on  the  shoulder  and 
coax  him  to  stay.  I  don't  think  I  ought  to  do  it.  I  will 
not  do  it.  I  will  take  him  at  his  word."  So  he  did.  This 
was  at  the  end  of  June,  1864,  when  Lincoln's  apprehen- 
sions about  his  own  re-election  were  keen,  and  the  resig- 
nation of  Chase,  along  with  the  retention  of  Blair,  seemed 
likely  to  provoke  anger  which  was  very  dangerous  to  him- 
self. An  excellent  successor  to  the  indispensable  man  was 
soon  found.  Chase  found  more  satisfaction  than  ever  in 
insidious  opposition  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln's  opportunity 
of  requiting  him  was  not  yet. 

The  question  of  the  Presidency  loomed  large  from  the 
beginning  of  the  year  to  the  election  in  November.  At 
first,  while  the  affairs  of  war  seemed  to  be  in  good  train, 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  409 

the  chief  question  was  who  should  be  the  Republican  can- 
didate. It  was  obviously  not  a  time  when  a  President  of 
even  moderate  ability  and  character,  with  all  the  threads 
in  his  hands,  could  wisely  have  been  replaced  except  for 
overwhelming  reasons.  But  since  1832,  when  Jackson 
had  been  re-elected,  the  practice  of  giving  a  President  a 
second  term  had  lapsed.  It  has  been  seen  that  there 
was  friction,  not  wholly  unnatural,  between  Lincoln  and 
many  of  his  party.  The  inner  circles  of  politicians  were 
considering  what  candidate  could  carry  the  country.  They 
were  doing  so  with  great  anxiety,  for  disaffection  was 
growing  serious  in  the  North  and  the  Democrats  would 
make  a  good  fight.  They  honestly  doubted  whether  Lin- 
coln was  the  best  candidate,  and  attributed  their  own 
excited  mood  of  criticism  to  the  public  at  large.  They 
forgot  the  leaning  of  ordinary  men  towards  one  who  is 
already  serving  them  honestly.  Of  the  other  possible 
candidates,  including  Chase,  Fremont  had  the  most  en- 
ergetic backers.  Enough  has  been  said  already  of  his 
delusive  attractiveness.  General  Butler  had  also  some 
support.  He  was  an  impostor  of  a  coarser  but  more  use- 
ful stamp.  A  successful  advocate  in  Massachusetts,  he 
had  commanded  the  militia  of  the  State  when  they  first 
appeared  on  the  scene  at  Baltimore  in  1861,  and  he  had 
been  in  evidence  ever  since  without  sufficient  opportunity 
till  May,  1864,  of  proving  that  real  military  incapacity 
of  which  some  of  Lincoln's  friends  suspected  him.  He 
had  a  kind  of  resourceful  impudence,  coupled  with  execu- 
tive vigour  and  a  good  deal  of  wit,  which  had  made  him 
useful  in  the  less  martial  duties  of  his  command.  Gen- 
erals in  a  war  of  this  character  were  often  so  placed  that 
they  had  little  fighting  to  do  and  much  civil  government, 
and  Butler,  who  had  first  treated  slaves  as  "  contraband  " 
and  had  dealt  with  his  difficulties  about  negroes  with  more 
heart  and  more  sense  than  many  generals,  had  to  some 
extent  earned  his  reputation  among  the  Republicans. 
Thus  of  those  volunteer  generals  who  never  became  good 
soldiers  he  is  said  to  have  been  the  only  one  that  escaped 
the  constant  process  of  weeding  out.  To  the  end  he  kept 


4io  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

confidently  claiming  higher  rank  in  the  Army,  and  when 
he  had  signally  failed  under  Grant  at  Petersburg  he  suc- 
ceeded somehow  in  imposing  himself  upon  that,  at  first 
indignant,  general.  Nothing  actually  came  of  the  danger 
that  the  public  might  find  a  hero  in  this  man,  who  was 
neither  scrupulous  nor  able,  but  he  had  so  captivated  ex- 
perienced politicians  that  some  continued  even  after  Lin- 
coln's re-election  to  think  Butler  the  man  whom  the  peo- 
ple would  have  preferred.  Last  but  not  least  many  were 
anxious  to  nominate  Grant.  It  was  an  innocent  thought, 
but  Grant's  merits  were  themselves  the  conclusive  reason 
why  he  should  not  be  taken  from  the  work  he  had  already 
in  hand. 

Through  the  early  months  of  the  year  the  active  poli- 
ticians earnestly  collogued  among  themselves  about  pos- 
sible candidates,  and  it  seems  there  was  little  sign  among 
them  of  that  general  confidence  in  Lincoln  which  a  little 
while  before  had  been  recognised  as  prevailing  in  the 
country.  In  May  the  small  and  light-headed  section  of 
the  so-called  Radicals  who  favoured  Fremont  organised 
for  themselves  a  "  national  meeting  "  of  some  few  people 
at  which  they  nominated  him  for  the  Presidency.  They 
had  no  chance  of  success,  but  they  might  have  helped  the 
Democrats  by  carrying  off  some  Republican  votes.  Be- 
sides, there  are  of  course  men  who,  having  started  as 
extremists  in  one  direction  and  failed,  will  go  over  to  the 
opposite  extreme  rather  than  moderate  their  aims. 
Months  later,  when  a  Republican  victory  of  some  sort 
became  certain,  unanimity  among  Republicans  was  se- 
cured; for  some  passions  were  appeased  by  the  resigna- 
tion of  Blair,  and  Fremont  was  prevailed  upon  to  with- 
draw. But  in  the  meantime  the  Republican  party  had 
sent  its  delegates  to  a  Convention  at  Baltimore  early  in 
June.  This  Convention  met  in  a  comparatively  fortunate 
hour.  In  spite  of  the  open  disaffection  of  small  sections, 
the  Northern  people  had  been  in  good  spirits  about  the 
war  when  Grant  set  out  to  overcome  Lee.  At  first  he  was 
felt  to  be  progressing  pretty  well,  and,  though  the  reverse 
at  Cold  Harbour  had  happened  a  few  days  before,  the 


size  of  that  mishap  was  not  yet  appreciated.  Ordinary 
citizens,  called  upon  now  and  then  to  decide  a  broad  and 
grave  issue,  often  judge  with  greater  calm  than  is  possible 
to  any  but  the  best  of  the  politicians  and  the  journalists. 
Indeed,  some  serious  politicians  had  been  anxious  to  post- 
pone the  Convention,  justly  fearing  that  these  ignorant 
delegates  were  not  yet  imbued  with  that  contempt  for 
Lincoln  which  they  had  worked  up  among  themselves.  At 
the  Baltimore  Convention  the  delegates  of  one  State 
wanted  Grant,  but  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  was  imme- 
diate and  almost  unanimous.  This  same  Convention  de- 
clared for  a  Constitutional  Amendment  to  abolish 
slavery.  Lincoln  would  say  nothing  as  to  the  choice  of 
a  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  He  was  right,  but 
the  result  was  most  unhappy  in  the  end.  The  Convention 
chose  Andrew  Johnson.  Johnson,  whom  Lincoln  could 
hardly  endure,  began  life  as  a  journeyman  tailor.  He  had 
raised  himself  like  Lincoln,  and  had  performed  a  great 
part  in  rallying  the  Unionists  of  Tennessee.  But — not 
to  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  he  was  drunk  when  he  was 
sworn  in  as  Vice-President — his  political  creed  was  that 
of  bitter  class-hatred,  and  his  character  degenerated  into 
a  weak  and  brutal  obstinacy.  This  man  was  to  succeed 
Lincoln.  Lincoln,  in  his  letter  to  accept  the  nomination, 
wrote  modestly,  refusing  to  take  the  decision  of  the  Con- 
vention as  a  tribute  to  his  peculiar  fitness  for  his  post,  but 
was  "  reminded  in  this  connection  of  a  story  of  an  old 
Dutch  farmer,  who  remarked  to  a  companion  that  it  was 
not  best  to  swap  horses  when  crossing  a  stream." 

It  remained  possible  that  the  dissatisfied  Republicans 
would  revolt  later  and  put  another  champion  in  the  field. 
But  now  attention  turned  to  the  Democrats.  Their  Con- 
vention was  to  meet  at  Chicago  at  the  end  of  August, 
and  in  the  interval  the  North  entered  upon  the  period 
of  deepest  mental  depression  that  came  to  it  during  the 
war.  It  is  startling  to  learn  now  that  in  the  course  of 
that  year,  when  the  Confederacy  lay  like  a  nut  in  the 
nutcrackers,  when  the  crushing  of  its  resistance  might 
indeed  require  a  little  stronger  pressure  than  was  ex- 


412  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pected,  and  the  first  splitting  in  its  hard  substance  might 
not  come  on  the  side  on  which  it  was  looked  for,  but  when 
no  wise  man  could  have  a  doubt  as  to  the  end,  the  vic- 
torious people  were  inclined  to  think  that  the  moment  had 
come  for  giving  in.  "  In  this  purpose  to  save  the  country 
and  its  liberties,"  said  Lincoln,  "  no  class  of  people  seem 
so  nearly  unanimous  as  the  soldiers  in  the  field  and  the 
sailors  afloat.  Do  they  not  have  the  hardest  of  it?  Who 
should  quail  while  they  do  not?  "  Yet  there  is  conclusive 
authority  for  saying  that  there  was  now  more  quailing  in 
the  North  than  there  had  ever  been  before.  When  the 
war  had  gone  on  long,  checks  to  the  course  of  victory 
shook  the  nerves  of  people  at  home  more  than  crush- 
ing defeats  had  shaken  them  in  the  first  two  years  of  the 
struggle,  and  men  who  would  have  wrapped  the  word 
"  surrender  "  in  periphrasis  went  about  with  surrender 
in  their  hearts.  Thus  the  two  months  that  went  before 
the  great  rally  of  the  Democrats  at  Chicago  were  months 
of  good  omen  for  a  party  which,  however  little  the  many 
honourable  men  in  its  ranks  were  willing  to  face  the  fact, 
must  base  its  only  hope  upon  the  weakening  of  the  na- 
tional will.  For  public  attention  was  turned  away  from 
other  fields  of  war  and  fixed  upon  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  Sherman  drove  back  Johnston,  and  routed 
Hood;  Farragut  at  Mobile  enriched  the  annals  of  the 
sea;  but  what  told  upon  the  imagination  of  the  North 
was  that  Grant's  earlier  progress  was  followed  by  the 
definite  failure  of  his  original  enterprise  against  Lee's 
army,  by  Northern  defeats  on  the  Shenandoah  and  an 
actual  dash  by  the  South  against  Washington,  by  the 
further  failure  of  Grant's  first  assault  upon  Petersburg, 
and  by  hideous  losses  and  some  demoralisation  in  his 
army.  The  candidate  that  the  Democrats  would  put  for- 
ward and  the  general  principle  of  their  political  strategy 
were  well  known  many  weeks  before  their  Convention 
met;  and  the  Republicans  already  despaired  of  defeating 
them.  In  the  Chicago  Convention  there  were  men,  ap- 
parently less  reputable  in  character  than  their  frank  atti- 
tude suggests,  who  were  outspoken  against  the  war;  their 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  413 

leader  was  Vallandigham.  There  were  men  who  spoke 
boldly  for  the  war,  but  more  boldly  against  emancipa- 
tion and  the  faults  of  the  Government;  their  leader  was 
Seymour,  talking  with  the  accent  of  dignity  and  of  patriot- 
ism. Seymour,  for  the  war,  presided  over  the  Conven- 
tion; Vallandigham,  against  the  war,  was  the  master 
spirit  in  its  debates.  It  was  hard  for  such  men,  with 
any  saving  of  conscience,  to  combine.  The  mode  of  com- 
bination which  they  discovered  is  memorable  in  the  his- 
tory of  faction.  First  they  adopted  a  platform  which 
meant  peace;  then  they  adopted  a  candidate  intended  to 
symbolise  successful  war.  They  resolved  "  that  this  Con- 
vention does  explicitly  declare,  as  the  sense  of  the  Amer- 
ican people,  that  after  four  years  of  failure  to  restore 
the  Union  by  the  experiment  of  war  .  .  .  justice,  hu- 
manity, liberty,  and  the  public  welfare  demand  that  imme- 
diate efforts  be  made  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  with  a 
view  to  an  ultimate  convention  of  the  States  or  other 
peaceable  means,  to  the  end  that  at  the  earliest  practi- 
cable moment  peace  may  be  restored  on  the  basis  of  the 
Federal  Union  of  the  States."  The  fallacy  which  named 
the  Union  as  the  end  while  demanding  as  a  means  the 
immediate  cessation  of  hostilities  needs  no  demonstration. 
The  resolution  was  thus  translated :  "  Resolved  that  the 
war  is  a  failure  " ;  and  the  translation  had  that  trenchant 
accuracy  which  is  often  found  in  American  popular  epi- 
gram. The  candidate  chosen  was  McClellan;  McClellan 
in  set  terms  repudiated  the  resolution  that  the  war  was 
a  failure,  and  then  accepted  the  candidature.  He  meant 
no  harm  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  but  he  meant  no  def- 
inite and  clearly  conceived  good.  Electors  might  now 
vote  Democratic  because  the  party  was  peaceful  or  be- 
cause the  candidate  was  a  warrior.  The  turn  of  fortune 
was  about  to  arrest  this  combination  in  the  really  formid- 
able progress  of  its  crawling  approach  to  power.  Per- 
haps it  was  not  only,  as  contemporary  observers  thought, 
events  in  the  field  that  began  within  a  few  days  to  make 
havoc  with  the  schemes  of  McClellan  and  his  managers. 
Perhaps  if  the  patience  of  the  North  had  been  tried  a 


4i4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

little  longer  the  sense  of  the  people  would  still  have  re- 
coiled from  the  policy  of  the  Democrats,  which  had  now 
been  defined  in  hard  outline.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was 
only  in  the  months  while  the  Chicago  Convention  was  still 
impending  and  for  a  few  days  or  weeks  after  it  had  actu- 
ally taken  place  that  the  panic  of  the  Republicans  lasted. 
But  during  that  time  the  alarm  among  them  was  very 
great,  whether  it  was  wholly  due  to  the  discouragement 
of  the  people  about  the  war  or  originated  among  the 
leaders  and  was  communicated  to  their  flock.  Sagacious 
party  men  reported  from  their  own  neighbourhoods  that 
there  was  no  chance  of  winning  the  election.  In  one 
quarter  or  another  there  was  talk  of  setting  aside  Lincoln 
and  compelling  Grant  to  be  a  candidate.  About  August 
12  Lincoln  was  told  by  Thurlow  Weed,  the  greatest  of 
party  managers,  that  his  election  was  hopeless.  Ten  days 
later  he  received  the  same  assurance  from  the  central  Re- 
publican Committee  through  their  chairman,  Raymond, 
together  with  the  advice  that  he  should  make  overtures 
for  peace. 

Supposing  that  in  the  following  November  McClellan 
should  have  been  elected,  and  that  in  the  following  March 
he  should  have  come  into  office  with  the  war  unfinished, 
it  seems  now  hardly  credible  that  he  would  have  returned 
to  slavery,  or  at  least  disbanded  without  protection  the 
150,000  negroes  who  were  now  serving  the  North.  Lin- 
coln, however,  seriously  believed  that  this  was  the  course 
to  which  McClellan's  principles  and  those  of  his  party 
committed  him,  and  that  (policy  and  honour  apart)  this 
would  have  been  for  military  reasons  fatal.  McClellan 
had  repudiated  the  Peace  Resolution,  but  his  followers 
and  his  character  were  to  be  reckoned  with  rather  than 
his  words,  and  indeed  his  honest  principles  committed  him 
deeply  to  some  attempt  to  reverse  Lincoln's  policy  as  to 
slavery,  and  he  clearly  must  have  been  driven  into  nego- 
tiations with  the  South.  The  confusion  which  must  inev- 
itably be  created  by  attempts  to  satisfy  the  South,  when 
it  was  in  no  humour  of  moderation,  and  by  the  fury  which 
yielding  would  have  provoked  in  half  the  people  of  the 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  415 

North,  was  well  and  tersely  described  by  Grant  in  a  letter 
to  a  friend,  which  that  friend  published  in  support  of 
Lincoln.  At  a  fair  at  Philadelphia  for  the  help  of  the 
wounded  Lincoln  said:  "We  accepted  this  war;  we  did 
not  begin  it.  We  accepted  it  for  an  object,  and  when  that 
object  is  accomplished  the  war  will  end,  and  I  hope  to 
God  that  it  will  never  end  until  that  object  is  accom- 
plished." Whatever  the  real  mind  of  McClellan  and  of 
the  average  Democrat  may  have  been,  it  was  not  this; 
and  the  posterity  of  Mr.  Facing-both-ways  may  succeed 
in  an  election,  but  never  in  war  or  the  making  of  lasting 
peace. 

Lincoln  looked  forward  with  happiness,  after  he  was 
actually  re-elected,  to  the  quieter  pursuits  of  private  life 
which  might  await  him  in  four  years'  time.  He  looked 
forward  not  less  happily  to  a  period  of  peace  administra- 
tion first,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  would  have 
prized  as  much  as  any  man  the  highest  honour  that  his 
countrymen  could  bestow,  a  second  election  to  the  Presi- 
dency. But,  even  in  a  smaller  man  who  had  passed 
through  such  an  experience  as  he  had  and  was  not  warped 
by  power,  these  personal  wishes  might  well  have  been 
merged  in  concern  for  the  cause  in  hand.  There  is  every- 
thing to  indicate  that  they  were  completely  so  in  his  case. 
A  President  cannot  wisely  do  much  directly  to  promote 
his  own  re-election,  but  he  appears  to  have  done  singu- 
larly little.  At  the  beginning  of  1864,  when  the  end  of 
the  war  seemed  near,  and  the  election  of  a  Republican 
probable,  he  may  well  have  thought  that  he  would  be  the 
Republican  candidate,  but  he  had  faced  the  possible 
choice  of  Chase  very  placidly,  and  of  Grant  he  said,  "  If 
he  takes  Richmond  let  him  have  the  Presidency."  It  was 
another  matter  when  the  war  again  seemed  likely  to  drag 
on  and  a  Democratic  President  might  come  in  before  the 
end  of  it.  An  editor  who  visited  the  over-burdened  Presi- 
dent in  August  told  him  that  he  needed  some  weeks  of 
rest  and  seclusion.  But  he  said,  "  I  cannot  fly  from  my 
thoughts.  I  do  not  think  it  is  personal  vanity  or  ambition, 
though  I  am  not  free  from  those  infirmities,  but  I  cannot 


416  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

but  feel  that  the  weal  or  woe  of  the  nation  will  be  de- 
cided in  November.  There  is  no  proposal  offered  by  any 
wing  of  the  Democratic  party  but  that  must  result  in  the 
permanent  destruction  of  the  Union."  He  would  have 
been  well  content  to  make  place  for  Grant  if  Grant  had 
finished  his  work.  But  that  work  was  delayed,  and  then 
Lincoln  became  greatly  troubled  by  the  movement  to 
force  Grant,  the  general  whom  he  had  at  last  found,  into 
politics  with  his  work  undone;  for  all  would  have  been 
lost  if  McClellan  had  come  in  with  the  war  still  progress- 
ing badly.  Lincoln  had  been  invited  in  June  to  a  gather- 
ing in  honour  of  Grant,  got  up  with  the  thinly  disguised 
object  of  putting  the  general  forward  as  his  rival.  He 
wrote,  with  true  diplomacy :  "  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
attend.  I  approve  nevertheless  of  whatever  may  tend  to 
strengthen  and  sustain  General  Grant  and  the  noble 
armies  now  under  his  command.  He  and  his  brave  sol- 
diers are  now  in  the  midst  of  their  great  trial,  and  I  trust 
that  at  your  meeting  you  will  so  shape  your  good  words 
that  they  may  turn  to  men  and  guns,  moving  to  his  and 
their  support."  In  August  he  told  his  mind  plainly  to 
Grant's  friend  Eaton.  He  never  dreamed  for  a  moment 
that  Grant  would  willingly  go  off  into  politics  with  the 
military  situation  still  insecure,  and  he  believed  that  no 
possible  pressure  could  force  Grant  to  do  so ;  but  on  this 
latter  question  he  wished  to  make  himself  sure;  with  a 
view  to  future  military  measures  he  really  needed  to  bt 
sure  of  it.  Eaton  saw  Grant,  and  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation very  tactfully  brought  to  Grant's  notice  the 
designs  of  his  would-be  friends.  "  We  had,"  writes 
Eaton,  "  been  talking  very  quietly,  but  Grant's  reply  came 
in  an  instant  and  with  a  violence  for  which  I  was  not  pre- 
pared. He  brought  his  clenched  fists  down  hard  on  the 
strap  arms  of  his  camp  chair,  '  They  can't  do  it.  They 
can't  compel  me  to  do  it.'  Emphatic  gesture  was  not  a 
strong  point  with  Grant.  '  Have  you  said  this  to  the 
President?'  I  asked.  'No,'  said  Grant.  'I  have  not 
thought  it  worth  while  to  assure  the  President  of  my 
opinion.  I  consider  it  as  important  for  the  cause  that 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  417 

he  should  be  elected  as  that  the  army  should  be  successful 
in  the  field.'  '  "  I  told  you,"  said  Lincoln  afterwards, 
"  they  could  not  get  him  to  run  till  he  had  closed  out  the 
rebellion."  Since  the  great  danger  was  now  only  that 
McClellan  would  become  President  in  March,  there  was 
but  one  thing  to  do — to  try  and  finish  the  war  before  then. 
Raymond's  advice  in  favour  of  negotiations  with  the 
South  now  came,  and  Lincoln's  mode  of  replying  to  this 
has  been  noticed.  Rumours  were  afloat  that  if  McClellan 
won  in  November  there  would  be  an  attempt  to  bring  him 
irregularly  into  power  at  once.  Lincoln  let  it  be  known 
that  he  should  stay  at  his  post  at  all  costs  till  the  last 
lawful  day.  On  August  23,  in  that  curious  way  in  which 
deep  emotion  showed  itself  with  him,  he  wrote  a  resolu- 
tion upon  a  paper,  which  he  folded  and  asked  his  min- 
isters to  endorse  with  their  signatures  without  reading  it. 
They  all  wrote  their  names  on  the  back  of  it,  ready,  if 
that  were  possible,  to  commit  themselves  blindly  to  sup- 
port of  him  in  whatever  he  had  resolved;  a  great  tribute 
to  him  and  to  themselves.  He  sealed  it  up  and  put  it  away. 
How  far  in  this  dark  time  the  confidence  of  the  people 
had  departed  from  Lincoln  no  one  can  tell.  It  might  be 
too  sanguine  a  view  of  the  world  to  suppose  that  they 
would  have  been  proof  against  what  may  be  called  a  con- 
spiracy to  run  him  down.  There  were  certainly  quarters 
in  which  the  perception  of  his  worth  came  soon  and  re- 
mained. Not  all  those  who  are  poor  or  roughly  brought 
up  were  among  those  plain  men  whose  approval  Lincoln 
desired  and  often  expected;  but  at  least  the  plain  man 
does  exist  and  the  plain  people  did  read  Lincoln's  words. 
The  soldiers  of  the  armies  in  the  East  by  this  time  knew 
Lincoln  well,  and  there  were  by  now,  as  we  shall  see,  in 
every  part  of  the  North,  honest  parents  who  had  gone  to 
Washington,  and  entered  the  White  House  very  sad,  and 
came  out  very  happy,  and  taken  their  report  of  him  home. 
No  less  could  there  be  found,  among  those  to  whom 
America  had  given  the  greatest  advantages  that  birth  and 
upbringing  can  offer,  families  in  which,  when  Lincoln  died, 
a  daughter  could  write  to  her  father  as  Lady  Harcourt 


4i8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

(then  Miss  Lily  Motley)  wrote:  "I  echo  your  'thank 
God '  that  we  always  appreciated  him  before  he  was 
taken  from  us."  But  if  we  look  at  the  political  world,  we 
find  indeed  noble  exceptions  such  as  that  of  Charles 
Sumner  among  those  who  had  been  honestly  perplexed 
by  Lincoln's  attitude  on  slavery;  we  have  to  allow  for  the 
feelings  of  some  good  State  Governor  who  had  come  to 
him  with  a  tiresome  but  serious  proposition  and  been 
adroitly  parried  with  an  untactful  and  coarse  apologue; 
yet  it  remains  to  be  said  that  a  thick  veil,  woven  of  self- 
conceit  and  half-education,  blinded  most  politicians  to 
any  rare  quality  in  Lincoln,  and  blinded  them  to  what  was 
due  in  decency  to  any  man  discharging  his  task.  The  evi- 
dence collected  by  Mr.  Rhodes  as  to  the  tone  prevailing 
in  1864  at  Washington  and  among  those  in  touch  with 
Washington  suggests  that  strictly  political  society  was  on 
the  average  as  poor  in  brain  and  heart  as  the  court  of 
the  most  decadent  European  monarchy.  It  presents  a 
stern  picture  of  the  isolation,  on  one  side  at  least,  in  which 
Lincoln  had  to  live  and  work. 

A  little  before  this  crowning  period  of  Lincoln's  career 
Walt  Whitman  described  him  as  a  man  in  the  streets  of 
Washington  could  see  him,  if  he  chose.  He  has  been 
speaking  of  the  cavalry  escort  which  the  President's  ad- 
visers insisted  should  go  clanking  about  with  him.  "  The 
party,"  he  continues,  "  makes  no  great  show  in  uniform 
or  horses.  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  saddle  generally  rides  a 
good-sized,  easy-going  grey  horse,  is  dressed  in  plain 
black,  somewhat  rusty  and  dusty,  and  looks  about  as  ordi- 
nary in  attire,  etc.,  as  the  commonest  man.  The  entirely 
unornamental  cortege  arouses  no  sensation;  only  some 
curious  stranger  stops  and  gazes.  I  see  very  plainly 
Abraham  Lincoln's  dark  brown  face,  with  the  deep-cut 
lines,  the  eyes  always  to  me  with  a  deep  latent  sadness  in 
the  expression.  We  have  got  so  that  we  exchange  bows, 
and  very  cordial  ones.  Sometimes  the  President  goes 
and  comes  in  an  open  barouche  "  (not,  the  poet  intimates, 
a  very  smart  turn-out).  "  Sometimes  one  of  his  sons,  a 
boy  of  ten  or  twelve,  accompanies  him,  riding  at  his  right 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  419 

on  a  pony.  They  passed  me  once  very  close,  and  I  saw 
the  President  in  the  face  fully  as  they  were  moving  slowly, 
and  his  look,  though  abstracted,  happened  to  be  directed 
steadily  in  my  eye.  He  bowed  and  smiled,  but  far  be- 
neath his  smile  I  noticed  well  the  expression  I  have  al- 
luded to.  None  of  the  artists  or  pictures  has  caught  the 
deep  though  subtle  and  indirect' expression  of  this  man's 
face.  There  is  something  else  there.  One  of  the  great 
portrait  painters  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago  is  needed." 
The  little  boy  on  the  pony  was  Thomas,  called  "  Tad," 
a  constant  companion  of  his  father's  little  leisure,  now 
dead.  An  elder  boy,  Robert,  has  lived  to  be  welcomed 
as  Ambassador  in  this  country,  and  was  at  this  time  a 
student  at  Harvard.  Willie,  a  clever  and  lovably  mis- 
chievous child,  "  the  chartered  libertine  of  the  White 
House  "  for  a  little  while,  had  died  at  the  age  of  twelve 
in  the  early  days  of  1862,  when  his  father  was  getting  so 
impatient  to^stir  McClellan  into  action.  These  and  a  son 
who  had  long  before  died  in  infancy  were  the  only  chil- 
dren of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln.  Little  has  been  made 
public  concerning  them,  but  enough  to  convey  the  impres- 
sion of  a  wise  and  tender  father,  trusted  by  his  children 
and  delighting  in  them.  John  Nicolay,  his  loyal  and 
capable  secretary,  and  the  delightful  John  Hay  must  be 
reckoned  on  the  cheerful  side — for  there  was  one — of 
Lincoln's  daily  life.  The  life  of  the  home  at  the  White 
House,  and  sometimes  in  summer  at  the  "  Soldiers' 
Home  "  near  Washington,  was  simple,  and  in  his  own 
case  (not  in  that  of  his  guests)  regardless  of  the  time, 
sufficiency,  or  quality  of  meals.  He  cannot  have  given 
people  much  trouble,  but  he  gave  some  to  the  guard  who 
watched  him,  themselves  keenly  watched  by  Stanton; 
for  he  loved,  if  he  could,  to  walk  alone  from  his  midnight 
conferences  at  the  War  Department  to  the  White  House 
or  the  Soldiers'  Home.  The  barest  history  of  the  events 
with  which  he  dealt  is  proof  enough  of  long  and  hard  and 
anxious  working  days,  which  continued  with  hardly  a 
break  through  four  years.  In  that  history  many  a  com- 
plication has  here  been  barely  glanced  at  or  clean  left  out; 


420  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  this  year,  for  example,  the  difficulty  about  France  and 
Mexico  and  the  failure  of  the  very  estimable  Banks  in 
Texas  have  been  but  briefly  noted.  And  there  must  be 
remembered,  in  addition,  the  duty  of  a  President  to  be 
accessible  to  all  people,  a  duty  which  Lincoln  especially 
strove  to  fulfil. 

Apart  from  formal  receptions,  the  stream  of  callers  on 
him  must  have  given  Lincoln  many  compensations  for  its 
huge  monotony.  Very  odd,  and  sometimes  attractive, 
samples  of  human  nature  would  come  under  his  keen  eye. 
Now  and  then  a  visitor  came  neither  with  a  troublesome 
request,  nor  for  form's  sake  or  for  curiosity,  but  in  sim- 
ple honesty  to  pay  a  tribute  of  loyalty  or  speak  a  word  of 
good  cheer  which  Lincoln  received  with  unfeigned  grati- 
tude. Farmers  and  back-country  folk,  of  the  type  he 
could  best  talk  with,  came  and  had  more  time  than  he 
ought  to  have  spared  bestowed  on  them.  At  long  inter- 
vals there  came  a  friend  of  very  different  days.  Some  in- 
genious men,  for  instance,  fitted  out  Dennis  Hanks  in  a 
new  suit  of  clothes  and  sent  him  as  their  ambassador  to 
plead  for  certain  political  offenders.  It  is  much  to  be 
feared  that  they  were  more  successful  than  they  deserved, 
though  Stanton  intervened  and  Dennis,  when  he  had  seen 
him,  favoured  his  old  companion,  the  President,  with  ad- 
vice to  dismiss  that  minister.  But  the  immense  variety  of 
puzzling  requests  to  be  dealt  with  in  such  interviews  must 
have  made  heavy  demands  upon  a  conscientious  and  a 
kind  man,  especially  if  his  conscience  and  his  kindnessv 
were,  in  small  matters,  sometimes  at  variance.  Lincoln 
sent  a  multitude  away  with  that  feeling,  so  grateful  to 
poor  people,  that  at  least  they  had  received  such  hearing 
as  it  was  possible  to  give  them;  and  in  dealing  with  the 
applications  which  imposed  the  greatest  strain  on  himself 
he  made  an  ineffaceable  impression  upon  the  memory  of 
his  countrymen. 

The  American  soldier  did  not  take  naturally  to  disci- 
pline. Death  sentences,  chiefly  for  desertion  or  for  sleep- 
ing or  other  negligence  on  the  part  of  sentries,  were  con- 
tinually being  passed  by  courts-martial.  In  some  cases  or 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  421 

at  some  period  these  used  to  come  before  the  President 
on  a  stated  day  of  the  week,  of  which  Lincoln  would  often 
speak  with  horror.  He  was  continually  being  appealed 
to  in  relation  to  such  sentences  by  the  father  or  mother 
of  the  culprit,  or  some  friend.  At  one  time,  it  may  be,  he 
was  too  ready  with  pardon;  "  You  do  not  know,"  he  said, 
"  how  hard  it  is  to  let  a  human 'being  die,  when  you  feel 
that  a  stroke  of  your  pen  will  save  him."  Butler  used  to 
write  to  him  that  he  was  destroying  the  discipline  of  the 
army.  A  letter  of  his  to  Meade  shows  clearly  that,  later 
at  least,  he  did  not  wish  to  exercise  a  merely  cheap  and 
inconsiderate  mercy.  The  import  of  the  numberless  par- 
don stories  really  is  that  he  would  spare  himself  no 
trouble  to  enquire,  and  to  intervene  wherever  he  could 
rightly  give  scope  to  his  longing  for  clemency.  A  Con- 
gressman might  force  his  way  into  his  bedroom  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  rouse  him  from  his  sleep  to  bring  to 
his  notice  extenuating  facts  that  had  been  overlooked,  and 
receive  the  decision,  "  Well,  I  don't  see  that  it  will  do  him 
any  good  to  be  shot."  It  is  related  that  William  Scott,  a 
lad  from  a  farm  in  Vermont,  after  a  tremendous  march 
in  the  Peninsula  campaign,  volunteered  to  do  double 
guard  duty  to  spare  a  sick  comrade,  slept  at  his  post,  was 
caught,  and  was  under  sentence  of  death,  when  the  Presi- 
dent came  to  the  army  and  heard  of  him.  The  President 
visited  him,  chatted  about  his  home,  looked  at  his 
mother's  photograph,  and  so  forth.  Then  he  laid  his 
hands  on  the  boy's  shoulders  and  said  with  a  trembling 
voice,  "  My  boy,  you  are  not  going  to  be  shot.  I  believe 
you  when  you  tell  me  that  you  could  not  keep  awake.  I 
am  going  to  trust  you  and  send  you  back  to  the  regiment. 
But  I  have  been  put  to  a  great  deal  of  trouble  on  your 
account.  .  .  .  Now  what  I  want  to  know  is,  how  are 
you  going  to  pay  my  bill?  "  Scott  told  afterwards  how 
difficult  it  was  to  think,  when  his  fixed  expectation  of  death 
was  suddenly  changed;  but  how  he  managed  to  master 
himself,  thank  Mr.  Lincoln  and  reckon  up  how,  with  his 
pay  and  what  his  parents  could  raise  by  mortgage  on  their 
farm  and  some  help  from  his  comrades,  he  might  pay  the 


422  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bill  if  it  were  not  more  than  five  or  six  hundred  dollars. 
"  But  it  is  a  great  deal  more  than  that,"  said  the  Presi- 
dent. "  My  bill  is  a  very  large  one.  Your  friends  cannot 
pay  it,  nor  your  bounty,  nor  the  farm,  nor  all  your  com- 
rades. There  is  only  one  man  in  the  world  who  can  pay 
it,  and  his  name  is  William  Scott.  If  from  this  day 
William  Scott  does  his  duty,  so  that,  when  he  comes  to 
die,  he  can  look  me  in  the  face  as  he  does  now  and  say, 
'  I  have  kept  my  promise  and  I  have  done  my  duty  as  a 
soldier,'  then  my  debt  will  be  paid.  Will  you  make  the 
promise  and  try  to  keep  it?"  And  William  Scott  did 
promise;  and,  not  very  long  after,  he  was  desperately 
wounded,  and  he  died,  but  not  before  he  could  send  a 
message  to  the  President  that  he  had  tried  to  be  a  good 
soldier,  and  would  have  paid  his  debt  in  full  if  he  had 
lived,  and  that  he  died  thinking  of  Lincoln's  kind  face  and 
thanking  him  for  the  chance  he  gave  him  to  fall  like  a 
soldier  in  battle.  If  the  story  is  not  true — and  there  is  no 
reason  whatever  to  doubt  it — still  it  is  a  remarkable  man 
of  whom  people  spin  yarns  of  that  kind. 

When  Lincoln's  strength  became  visibly  tried  friends 
often  sought  to  persuade  him  to  spare  himself  the  need- 
less, and  to  him  very  often  harrowing,  labour  of  incessant 
interviews.  They  never  succeeded.  Lincoln  told  them 
he  could  not  forget  what  he  himself  would  feel  in  the 
place  of  the  many  poor  souls  who  came  to  him  desiring 
so  little  and  with  so  little  to  get.  But  he  owned  to  the 
severity  of  the  strain.  He  was  not  too  sensitive  to  the 
ridicule  and  reproach  that  surrounded  him.  "  Give  your- 
self no  uneasiness,"  he  had  once  said  to  some  one  who 
had  sympathised  with  him  over  some  such  annoyance,  "  I 
have  endured  a  great  deal  of  ridicule  without  much 
malice,  and  have  received  a  great  deal  of  kindness  not 
quite  free  from  ridicule.  I  am  used  to  it."  But  the  gentle 
nature  that  such  words  express,  and  that  made  itself 
deeply  felt  by  those  that  were  nearest  him,  cannot  but 
have  suffered  from  want  of  appreciation.  With  all  this 
added  to  the  larger  cares,  which  before  the  closing  phases 
of  the  war  opened  had  become  so  intense,  Lincoln  must 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  423 

have  been  taxed  near  to  the  limit  of  what  men  have  en- 
dured without  loss  of  judgment,  or  loss  of  courage  or  loss 
of  ordinary  human  feeling.  There  is  no  sign  that  any  of 
these  things  happened  to  him;  the  study  of  his  record 
rather  shows  a  steady  ripening  of  mind  and  character  to 
the  end.  It  has  been  seen  how  throughout  his  previous 
life  the  melancholy  of  his  temperament  impressed  those 
who  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  it.  A  colleague  of 
his  at  the  Illinois  bar  has  told  how  on  circuit  he  sometimes 
came  down  in  the  morning  and  found  Lincoln  sitting 
alone  over  the  embers  of  the  fire,  where  he  had  sat  all 
night  in  sad  meditation,  after  an  evening  of  jest  appar- 
ently none  the  less  hilarious  for  his  total  abstinence. 
There  was  no  scope  for  this  brooding  now,  and  in  a  sense 
the  time  of  his  severest  trial  cannot  have  been  the  sad- 
dest time  of  Lincoln's  life.  It  must  have  been  a  cause 
not  of  added  depression  but  of  added  strength  that  he 
had  long  been  accustomed  to  face  the  sternest  aspect  of 
the  world.  He  had  within  his  own  mind  two  resources, 
often,  perhaps  normally,  associated  together,  but  seldom 
so  fully  combined  as  with  him.  In  his  most  intimate 
circle  he  would  draw  upon  his  stores  of  poetry,  particu- 
larly of  tragedy;  often,  for  instance,  he  would  recite  such 
speeches  as  Richard  II. 's : 

"  For  God's  sake  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings. 
All  murdered." 

Slighter  acquaintances  saw,  day  by  day,  another  element 
in  his  thoughts,  the  companion  to  this;  for  the  hardly 
interrupted  play  of  humour  in  which  he  found  relief  con- 
tinued to  help  him  to  the  end.  Whatever  there  was  in  it 
either  of  mannerism  or  of  coarseness,  no  one  can  grudge 
it  him;  it  is  an  oddity  which  endears.  The  humour  of  real 
life  fades  in  reproduction,  but  Lincoln's,  there  is  no  doubt; 
was  a  vein  of  genuine  comedy,  deep,  rich,  and  unsoured, 
of  a  larger  human  quality  than  marks  the  brilliant  works 
of  literary  American  humorists.  It  was,  like  the  comedy 
of  Shakespeare,  plainly  if  unaccountably  akin  with  the 


424  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

graver  and  grander  strain  of  thought  and  feeling  that  in- 
spired the  greatest  of  his  speeches.  Physically  his  splen- 
did health  does  not  seem  to  have  been  impaired  beyond 
recovery.  But  it  was  manifestly  near  to  breaking;  and 
the  "  deep-cut  lines  "  were  cut  still  deeper,  and  the  long 
legs  were  always  cold. 

The  cloud  over  the  North  passed  very  suddenly.  The 
North  indeed  paid  the  penalty  of  a  nation  which  is  spared 
the  full  strain  of  a  war  at  the  first,  and  begins  to  discover 
its  seriousness  when  the  hope  of  easy  victory  has  been 
many  times  dashed  down.  It  has  been  necessary  to  dwell 
upon  the  despondency  which  at  one  time  prevailed;  but 
it  would  be  hard  to  rate  too  highly  the  military  difficulty 
of  the  conquest  undertaken  by  the  North,  or  the  trial  in- 
volved to  human  nature  by  perseverance  in  such  a  task. 
If  the  depression  during  the  summer  was  excessive,  as  it 
clearly  was,  at  least  the  recovery  which  followed  was  fully 
adequate  to  the  occasion  which  produced  it.  On  Septem- 
ber 2  Sherman  telegraphed,  "Atlanta  is  ours  and  fairly 
won."  The  strategic  importance  of  earlier  successes  may 
have  been  greater,  but  the  most  ignorant  man  who  looked 
at  a  map  could  see  what  it  signified  that  the  North  could 
occupy  an  important  city  in  the  heart  of  Georgia.  Then 
they  recalled  Farragut's  victory  of  a  month  before.  Then 
there  followed,  close  to  Washington,  putting  an  end  to 
a  continual  menace,  stirring  and  picturesquely  brilliant 
beyond  other  incidents  of  the  war,  Sheridan's  repeated 
victories  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  The  war  which  had 
been  "  voted  a  failure  "  was  evidently  not  a  failure.  At 
the  same  time  men  of  high  character  conducted  a  vigor- 
ous campaign  of  speeches  for  Lincoln.  General  Schurz, 
the  German  revolutionary  Liberal,  who  lived  to  tell  Bis- 
marck at  his  table  that  he  still  preferred  democracy  to 
his  amused  host's  method  of  government,  sacrificed  his 
command  in  the  Army — for  Lincoln  told  him  it  could  not 
be  restored — to  speak  for  Lincoln.  Even  Chase  was  car- 
ried away,  and  after  months  of  insidious  detraction,  went 
for  Lincoln  on  the  stump.  In  the  elections  in  November 
Lincoln  was  elected  by  an  enormous  popular  majority, 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  425 

giving  him  212  out  of  the  233  votes  in  the  electoral  col- 
lege, where  in  form  the  election  is  made.  Three  North- 
ern States  only,  one  of  them  his  native  State,  had  gone 
against  him.  He  made  some  -little  speeches  to  parties 
which  came  to  "serenade"  him;  some  were  not  very 
formal  speeches,  for,  as  he  said,  he  was  now  too  old  to 
"  care  much  about  the  mode  of  doing  things."  But  one 
was  this:  "It  has  long  been  a  grave  question  whether 
any  Government  not  too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  its 
people  can  be  strong  enough  to  maintain  its  existence  in 
great  emergencies.  On  this  point  the  present  rebellion 
brought  our  Government  to  a  severe  test,  and  a  Presi- 
dential election  occurring  in  regular  course  during  the 
rebellion  added  not  a  little  to  the  strain.  But  we  cannot 
have  a  free  Government  without  elections;  and  if  the 
rebellion  could  force  us  to  forego  or  postpone  a  national 
election  it  might  fairly  claim  to  have  already  conquered 
and  ruined  us.  But  the  election  along  with  its  incidental 
and  undesirable  strife  has  done  good  too.  It  has  demon- 
strated that  a  people's  Government  can  sustain  a  national 
election  in  the  midst  of  a  great  civil  war.  Until  now  it 
has  not  been  known  to  the  world  that  this  was  a  possi- 
bility. But  the  rebellion  continues,  and  now  that  the  elec- 
tion is  over  may  not  all  have  a  common  interest  to  reunite 
in  a  common  effort  to  save  our  common  country?  For 
my  own  part  I  have  striven  and  shall  strive  to  avoid 
placing  any  obstacle  in  the  way.  So  long  as  I  have  been 
here  I  have  not  willingly  planted  a  thorn  in  any  man's 
bosom.  While  I  am  duly  sensible  to  the  high  compliment 
of  a  re-election,  and  duly  grateful  as  I  trust  to  Almighty 
God  for  having  directed  my  countrymen  to  a  right  con- 
clusion, as  I  think,  for  their  good,  it  adds  nothing  to  my 
satisfaction  that  any  man  may  be  disappointed  by  the  re- 
sult. May  I  ask  those  who  have  not  differed  from  me  to 
join  with  me  in  this  same  spirit  towards  those  who  have? 
And  now  let  me  close  by  asking  three  hearty  cheers  for 
our  brave  soldiers  and  seamen,  and  their  gallant  and 
skilful  commanders." 

In  the  Cabinet  he  brought  out  the  paper  that  he  had 


426  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sealed  up  in  the  dark  days  of  August;  he  reminded  his 
ministers  of  how  they  had  endorsed  it  unread,  and  he  read 
it  them.  Its  contents  ran  thus :  "  This  morning,  as  for 
some  days  past,  it  seems  exceedingly  probable  that  this 
Administration  will  not  be  re-elected.  Then  it  will  be  my 
duty  to  so  co-operate  with  the  President-elect  as  to  save 
the  Union  between  the  election  and  the  inauguration,  as 
he  will  have  secured  his  election  on  such  ground  that  he 
cannot  possibly  save  it  afterwards."  Lincoln  explained 
what  he  had  intended  to  do  if  McClellan  had  won.  He 
would  have  gone  to  him  and  said,  "  General,  this  election 
shows  that  you  are  stronger,  have  more  influence  with 
the  people  of  this  country  than  I  " ;  and  he  would  have 
invited  him  to  co-operate  in  saving  the  Union  now,  by 
using  that  great  influence  to  secure  from  the  people  the 
willing  enlistment  of  enough  recruits.  "And  the  gen- 
eral," said  Seward,  "  would  have  said,  '  Yes,  yes  ' ;  and 
again  the  next  day,  when  you  spoke  to  him  about  it,  *  Yes, 
yes ' ;  and  so  on  indefinitely,  and  he  would  have  done 
nothing." 

"  Seldom  in  history,"  wrote  Emerson  in  a  letter  after 
the  election,  "  was  so  much  staked  upon  a  popular  vote. 
I  suppose  never  in  history." 

And  to  those  Americans  of  all  classes  and  in  all  dis- 
tricts of  the  North,  who  had  set  their  hearts  and  were 
giving  all  they  had  to  give  to  preserve  the  life  of  the 
nation,  the  political  crisis  of  1864  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  most  anxious  moment  of  the  war.  It  is  impos- 
sible— it  must  be  repeated — to  guess  how  great  the  dan- 
ger really  was  that  their  popular  government  might  in  the 
result  betray  the  true  and  underlying  will  of  the  people ; 
for  in  any  country  (and  in  America  perhaps  more  than 
most)  the  average  of  politicians,  whose  voices  are  most 
loudly  heard,  can  only  in  a  rough  and  approximate  fash- 
ion be  representative.  But  there  is  in  any  case  no  cause 
for  surprise  that  the  North  should  at  one  time  have 
trembled.  Historic  imagination  is  easily,  though  not 
one  whit  too  deeply,  moved  by  the  heroic  stand  of  the 
South.  It  is  only  after  the  effort  to  understand  the  light 


THE  APPROACH  OF  VICTORY  427 

in  which  the  task  of  the  North  has  presented  Itself  to 
capable  soldiers,  that  a  civilian  can  perceive  what  sus- 
tained resolution  was  required  if,  though  far  the  stronger, 
it  was  to  make  its  strength  tell.  Notwithstanding  the 
somewhat  painful  impression  which  the  political  chronicle 
of  this  time  at  some  points  gives,  it  is  the  fact  that  the 
wisest  Englishmen  who  were  in  those  days  in  America 
and  had  means  of  observing  what  passed  have  retained  a 
lasting  sense  of  the  constancy,  under  trial,  of  the  North. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE  END 

ON  December  6,  1864,  Lincoln  sent  the  last  of  his 
Annual  Messages  to  Congress.  He  treated  as  matter  for 
oblivion  the  "  impugning  of  motives  and  heated  contro- 
versy as  to  the  proper  means  of  advancing  the  Union 
cause,"  which  had  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  Presi- 
dential election  and  the  other  elections  of  the  autumn. 
For,  as  he  said,  "  on  the  distinct  issue  of  Union  or  no 
Union  the  politicians  have  shown  their  instinctive  knowl- 
edge that  there  is  no  diversity  among  the  people."  This 
was  accurate  as  well  as  generous,  for  though  many  Dem- 
ocrats had  opposed  the  war,  none  had  avowed  that  for 
the  sake  of  peace  he  would  give  up  the  Union.  Passing 
then  to  the  means  by  which  the  Union  could  be  made  to 
prevail  he  wrote :  "  On  careful  consideration  of  all  the 
evidence  accessible  it  seems  to  me  that  no  attempt  at  ne- 
gotiation with  the  insurgent  leader  could  result  in  any 
good.  He  would  accept  nothing  short  of  severance  of 
the  Union — precisely  what  we  will  not  and  cannot  give. 
Between  him  and  us  the  issue  is  distinct,  simple,  and  in- 
flexible. It  is  an  issue  which  can  only  be  tried  by  war  and 
decided  by  victory.  The  abandonment  of  armed  resist- 
ance to  the  national  authority  on  the  part  of  the  insur- 
gents is  the  only  indispensable  condition  to  ending  the 
war  on  the  part  of  the  Government."  To  avoid  a  possi- 
ble misunderstanding  he  added  that  not  a  single  person 
who  was  free  by  the  terms  of  the  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation or  of  any  Act  of  Congress  would  be  returned  to 
slavery  while  he  held  the  executive  authority.  "  If  the 
people  should  by  whatever  mode  or  means  make  it  an 
executive  duty  to  re-enslave  such  persons,  another,  and 
not  I,  must  be  their  instrument  to  perform  it."  This  last 

428 


THE  END  429 

sentence  was  no  meaningless  flourish;  the  Constitutional 
Amendment  prohibiting  slavery  couM  not  be  passed  for 
some  time,  and  might  conceivably  be  defeated;  in  the 
meantime  the  Courts  might  possibly  have  declared  any 
negro  in  the  Southern  States  a  slave ;  Lincoln's  words  let 
it  be  seen  that  they  would  have  found  themselves  without 
an  arm  to  enforce  their  decision.  But  in  fact  there  was 
no  longer  an  issue  with  the  South  as  to  abolition.  Jeffer- 
son Davis  had  himself  declared  that  slavery  was  gone, 
for  most  slaves  had  now  freed  themselves,  and  that  he 
for  his  part  troubled  very  little  over  that.  There  re- 
mained, then,  no  issue  between  North  and  South  except 
that  between  Independence  and  Union. 

On  the  same  day  that  he  sent  his  annual  message  Lin- 
coln gave  himself  a  characteristic  pleasure  by  another 
communication  which  he  sent  to  the  Senate.  Old  Roger 
Taney  of  the  Dred  Scott  case  had  died  in  October;  the 
Senate  was  now  requested  to  confirm  the  President's 
nomination  of  a  new  Chief  Justice  to  succee'd  him;  and 
the  President  had  nominated  Chase.  Chase's  reputation 
as  a  lawyer  had  seemed  to  fit  him  for  the  position,  but 
the  well  informed  declared  that,  in  spite  of  some  appear- 
ances on  the  platform  for  Lincoln  he  still  kept  "  going 
around  peddling  his  griefs  in  private  ears  and  sowing  dis- 
satisfaction against  Lincoln."  So  in  spite  of  Lincoln's 
pregnant  remark  on  this  subject  that  he  "  did  not  believe 
in  keeping  any  man  under,"  nobody  supposed  that  Lin- 
coln would  appoint  him.  Sumner  and  Congressman  Alley 
of  Massachusetts  had  indeed  gone  to  Lincoln  to  urge  the 
appointment.  "  We  found,  to  our  dismay,"  Alley  relates, 
"  that  the  President  had  heard  of  the  bitter  criticisms  of 
Mr.  Chase  upon  himself  and  his  Administration.  Mr. 
Lincoln  urged  many  of  Chase's  defects,  to  discover,  as 
we  afterwards  learned,  how  his  objection  could  be  an- 
swered. We  were  both  discouraged  and  made  up  our 
minds  that  the  President  did  not  mean  to  appoint  Mr. 
Chase.  It  really  seemed  too  much  to  expect  of  poor 
human  nature."  One  morning  Alley  again  saw  the  Pres- 
ident. "  I  have  something  to  tell  you  that  will  make  you 


430  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

happy,"  said  Lincoln.  "  I  have  just  sent  Mr.  Chase  word 
that  he  is  to  be  appointed  Chief  Justice,  and  you  are  the 
first  man  I  have  told  of  it."  Alley  said  something  natural 
about  Lincoln's  magnanimity,  but  was  told  in  reply  what 
the  only  real  difficulty  had  been.  Lincoln  from  his  "  con- 
victions of  duty  to  the  Republican  party  and  the  coun- 
try "  had  always  meant  to  appoint  Chase,  subject  to  one 
doubt  which  he  had  revolved  in  his  mind  till  he  had  set- 
tled it.  This  doubt  was  simply  whether  Chase,  beset  as 
he  was  by  a  craving  for  the  Presidency  which  he  could 
never  obtain,  would  ever  really  turn  his  attention  with  a 
will  to  becoming  the  great  Chief  Justice  that  Lincoln 
thought  he  could  be.  Lincoln's  occasional  failures  of 
tact  had  sometimes  a  noble  side  to  them ;  he  even  thought 
now  of  writing  to  Chase  and  telling  him  with  simple 
seriousness  where  he  felt  his  temptation  lay,  and  he  with 
difficulty  came  to  see  that  this  attempt  at  brotherly  frank- 
ness would  be  misconstrued  by  a  suspicious  and  jealous 
man.  Charles  Sumner,  Chase's  advocate  on  this  occa- 
sion, was  all  this  time  the  most  weighty  and  the  most 
pronounced  of  those  Radicals  who  were  beginning  to 
press  for  unrestricted  negro  suffrage  in  the  South  and  in 
general  for  a  hard  and  inelastic  scheme  of  "  reconstruc- 
tion," which  they  would  have  imposed  on  the  conquered 
South  without  an  attempt  to  conciliate  the  feeling  of  the 
vanquished  or  to  invite  their  co-operation  in  building  up 
the  new  order.  He  was  thus  the  chief  opponent  of  that 
more  tentative,  but  as  is  now  seen,  more  liberal  and  more 
practical  policy  which  lay  very  close  to  Lincoln's  heart; 
enough  has  been  said  of  him  to  suggest  too  that  this 
grave  person,  bereft  of  any  glimmering  of  fun,  was  in 
one  sense  no  congenial  companion  for  Lincoln.  But  he 
was  stainlessly  unselfish  and  sincere,  and  he  was  the 
politician  above  all  others  in  Washington  with  whom 
Lincoln  most  gladly  and  most  successfully  maintained 
easy  social  intercourse.  And,  to  please  him  in  little  ways, 
Lincoln  would  disentangle  his  long  frame  from  the 
"  grotesque  position  of  comfort "  into  which  he  had 
twisted  it  in  talk  with  some  other  friend,  and  would  as- 


THE  END  431 

sume  in  an  instant  a  courtly  demeanour  when  Sumner  was 
about  to  enter  his  room. 

On  January  31,  1865,  the  resolution  earlier  passed  by 
the  Senate  for  a  Constitutional  Amendment  to  prohibit 
slavery  was  passed  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  as 
Lincoln  had  eagerly  desired,  so  that  the  requisite  voting 
of  three  quarters  of  the  States  in  its  favour  could  now 
begin.  Before  that  time  the  Confederate  Congress  had, 
on  March  13,  1865,  closed  its  last,  most  anxious  and 
distracted  session  by  passing  an  Act  for  the  enlistment 
of  negro  volunteers,  who  were  to  become  free  on  enlist- 
ment. As  a  military  measure  it  was  belated  and  inopera- 
tive, but  nothing  could  more  eloquently  have  marked  the 
practical  extinction  of  slavery  which  the  war  had  wrought 
than  the  consent  of  Southern  legislators  to  convert  the 
remaining  slaves  into  soldiers. 

The  military  operations  of  1865  had  proceeded  but  a 
very  little  way  when  the  sense  of  what  they  portended 
was  felt  among  the  Southern  leaders  in  Richmond.  The 
fall  of  that  capital  itself  might  be  hastened  or  be  de- 
layed; Lee's  army  if  it  escaped  from  Richmond  might 
prolong  resistance  for  a  shorter  or  for  a  longer  time,  but 
Sherman's  march  to  the  sea,  and  the  far  harder  achieve- 
ments of  the  same  kind  which  he  was  now  beginning, 
made  the  South  feel,  as  he  knew  it  would  feel,  that  not  a 
port,  not  an  arsenal,  not  a  railway,  not  a  corn  district  of 
the  South  lay  any  longer  beyond  the  striking  range  of  the 
North.  Congressmen  and  public  officials  in  Richmond 
knew  that  the  people  of  the  South  now  longed  for  peace 
and  that  the  authority  of  the  Confederacy  was  gone. 
They  beset  Jefferson  Davis  with  demands  that  he  should 
start  negotiations.  But  none  of  them  had  determined 
what  price  they  would  pay  for  peace ;  and  there  was  not 
among  them  any  will  that  could  really  withstand  their 
President.  In  one  point  indeed  Jefferson  Davis  did  wisely 
yield.  On  February  9,  1865,  he  consented  to  make  Lee 
General-in-Chief  of  all  the  Southern  armies.  This  be- 
lated delegation  of  larger  authority  to  Lee  had  certain 
military  results,  but  no  political  result  whatever.  Lee 


432  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

could  have  been  the  dictator  of  the  Confederacy  if  he 
had  chosen,  and  no  one  then  or  since  would  have  blamed 
him;  but  it  was  not  in  his  mind  to  do  anything  but  his 
duty  as  a  soldier.  The  best  beloved  and  most  memorable 
by  far  of  all  the  men  who  served  that  lost  cause,  he  had 
done  nothing  to  bring  about  secession  at  the  beginning, 
nor  now  did  he  do  anything  but  conform  to  the  wishes  of 
his  political  chief.  As  for  that  chief,  Lincoln  had  inter- 
preted Davis'  simple  position  quite  rightly.  Having  once 
embraced  the  cause  of  Southern  independence  and  taken 
the  oath  as  chief  magistrate  of  an  independent  Confed- 
eracy, he  would  not  yield  up  that  cause  while  there  was  a 
man  to  obey  his  orders.  Whether  this  attitude  should  be 
set  down,  as  it  usually  has  been  set  down,  to  a  diseased 
pride  or  to  a  very  real  heroism  on  his  part,  he  never  faced 
the  truth  that  the  situation  was  desperate  and  the  spirit 
of  his  people  daunted  at  last.  But  it  is  probable  that  just 
like  Lincoln  he  was  ready  that  those  who  were  in  haste 
to  make  peace  should  see  what  peace  involved;  and  it  is 
probable  too  that,  in  his  terrible  position,  he  deluded  him- 
self with  some  vague  and  vain  hopes  as  to  the  attitude  of 
the  North.  Lincoln  on  the  other  hand  would  not  enter 
into  any  proceedings  in  which  the  secession  of  the  South 
was  treated  otherwise  than  as  a  rebellion  which  must 
cease;  but  this  did  not  absolutely  compel  him  to  refuse 
every  sort  of  informal  communication  with  influential  men 
in  the  South,  which  might  help  them  to  see  where  they 
stood  and  from  which  he  too  might  learn  something. 

Old  Mr.  Francis  Blair,  the  father  of  Lincoln's  late 
Postmaster-General,  was  the  last  of  the  honest  peace- 
makers whom  Lincoln  had  allowed  to  see  things  for  them- 
selves by  meeting  Jefferson  Davis.  His  visit  took  place 
in  January,  1865,  and  from  his  determination  to  be  a  go- 
between  and  the  curious  and  difficult  position  in  which 
Lincoln  and  Davis  both  stood  in  this  respect  an  odd  re- 
sult arose.  The  Confederate  Vice-President  Stephens, 
who  had  preached  peace  in  the  autumn  without  a  quarrel 
with  Davis,  and  two  other  Southern  leaders  presented 
themselves  at  Grant's  headquarters  with  the  pathetic  mis- 


THE  END  433 

representation  that  they  were  sent  by  Davis  on  a  mission 
which  Lincoln  had  undertaken  to  receive.  What  they 
could  show  was  authority  from  Davis  to  negotiate  with 
Lincoln  on  the  footing  of  the  independence  of  the  Con- 
federacy, and  a  politely  turned  intimation  from  Lincoln 
that  he  would  at  any  time  receive  persons  informally  sent 
to  talk  with  a  view  to  the  surrender  of  the  rebel  armies. 
Grant,  however,  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  sincerity 
of  their  desire  for  peace,  and  he  entreated  Lincoln  to 
receive  them.  Lincoln  therefore  decided  to  overlook  the 
false  pretence  under  which  they  came.  He  gave  Grant 
strict  orders  not  to  delay  his  operations  on  this  account, 
but  he  came  himself  with  Seward  and  met  Davis'  three 
commissioners  on  a  ship  at  Hampton  Roads  on  February 
3.  He  and  Stephens  had  in  old  days  been  Whig  Con- 
gressmen together,  and  Lincoln  had  once  been  moved  to 
tears  by  a  speech  of  Stephens.  They  met  now  as  friends. 
Lincoln  lost  no  time  in  making  his  position  clear.  The 
unhappy  commissioners  made  every  effort  to  lead  him 
away  from  the  plain  ground  he  had  chosen.  It  is  evident 
that  they  and  possible  that  Jefferson  Davis  had  hoped 
that  when  face  to  face  with  them  he  would  change  his 
mind,  and  possibly  Blair's  talk  had  served  to  encourage 
this  hope.  They  failed,  but  the  conversation  continued 
in  a  frank  and  friendly  manner.  Lincoln  told  them  very 
freely  his  personal  opinions  as  to  how  the  North  ought  to 
treat  the  South  when  it  did  surrender,  but  was  careful  to 
point  out  that  he  could  make  no  promise  or  bargain,  ex- 
cept indeed  this  promise  that  so  far  as  penalties  for  re- 
bellion were  concerned  the  executive  power,  which  lay  in 
his  sole  hands,  would  be  liberally  used.  Slavery  was  dis- 
cussed, and  Seward  told  them  of  the  Constitutional 
Amendment  which  Congress  had  now  submitted  to  the 
people.  One  of  the  commissioners  returning  again  to  Lin- 
coln's refusal  to  negotiate  with  armed  rebels,  as  he  con- 
sidered them,  cited  the  precedent  of  Charles  I.'s  conduct 
in  this  respect.  "  I  do  not  profess,"  said  Lincoln,  "  to 
be  posted  in  history.  On  all  such  matters  I  turn  you  over 
to  Seward.  All  I  distinctly  recollect  about  Charles  I.  is 


434  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  he  lost  his  head  in  the  end."  Then  he  broke  out  into 
simple  advice  to  Stephens  as  to  the  action  he  could  now 
pursue.  He  had  to  report  to  Congress  afterwards  that 
the  conference  had  had  no  result.  He  brought  home, 
however,  a  personal  compliment  which  he  valued.  "  I 
understand,  then,"  Stephens  had  said,  "  that  you  regard 
us  as  rebels,  who  are  liable  to  be  hanged  for  treason." 
"  That  is  so,"  said  Lincoln.  "  Well,"  said  Stephens, 
"  we  supposed  that  would  have  to  be  your  view.  But,  to 
tell  you  the  truth,  we  have  none  of  us  been  much  afraid 
of  being  hanged  with  you  as  President."  He  brought 
home,  besides  the  compliment,  an  idea  of  a  kind  which, 
if  he  could  have  had  his  way  with  his  friends,  might  have 
been  rich  in  good.  He  had  discovered  how  hopeless  the 
people  of  the  South  were,  and  he  considered  whether  a 
friendly  pronouncement  might  not  lead  them  more  read- 
ily to  surrender.  He  deplored  the  suffering  in  which  the 
South  might  now  lie  plunged,  and  it  was  a  fixed  part  of 
his  creed  that  slavery  was  the  sin  not  of  the  South  but  of 
the  nation.  So  he  spent  the  day  after  his  return  in  draft- 
ing a  joint  resolution  which  he  hoped  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress  might  pass,  and  a  Proclamation  which  he  would 
in  that  case  issue.  In  these  he  proposed  to  offer  to  the 
Southern  States  four  hundred  million  dollars  in  United 
States  bonds,  being,  as  he  calculated  the  cost  to  the  North 
of  two  hundred  days  of  war,  to  be  allotted  among  those 
States  in  proportion  to  the  property  in  slaves  which  each 
had  lost.  One  half  of  this  sum  was  to  be  paid  at  once  if 
the  war  ended  by  April  I,  and  the  other  half  upon  the 
final  adoption  of  the  Constitutional  Amendment.  It 
would  have  been  a  happy  thing  if  the  work  of  restoring 
peace  could  have  lain  with  a  statesman  whose  rare  aber- 
rations from  the  path  of  practical  politics  were  of  this 
kind.  Yet,  considering  the  natural  passions  which  even 
in  this  least  revengeful  of  civil  wars  could  not  quite  be  re- 
pressed, we  should  be  judging  the  Congress  of  that  day 
by  a  higher  standard  than  we  should  apply  in  other  coun- 
tries if  we  regarded  this  proposal  as  one  that  could  have 
been  hopefully  submitted  to  them.  Lincoln's  illusions 


THE  END  435 

were  dispelled  on  the  following  day  when  he  read  what 
he  had  written  to  his  Cabinet,  and  found  that  even  among 
his  own  ministers  not  one  man  supported  him.  It  would 
have  been  worse  than  useless  to  put  forward  his  proposals 
and  to  fail.  u  You  are  all  opposed  to  me,"  he  said  sadly; 
and  he  put  his  papers  away.  But  the  war  had  now  so  far 
progressed  that  it  is  necessary  to  turn  back  to  the  point  at 
which  we  left  it  at  the  end  of  1864. 

Winter  weather  brought  a  brief  pause  to  the  opera- 
tions of  the  armies.  Sherman  at  Savannah  was  preparing 
to  begin  his  northward  march,  a  harder  matter,  owing  to 
the  rivers  and  marshes  that  lay  in  his  way,  than  his  tri- 
umphal progress  from  Atlanta.  Efforts  were  made  to 
concentrate  all  available  forces  against  him  at  Augusta 
to  his  north-west.  Making  feints  against  Augusta  on  the 
one  side,  and  against  the  city  and  port  of  Charleston  on 
the  other,  he  displayed  the  marvellous  engineering 
capacity  of  his  army  by  an  advance  of  unlooked-for  speed 
across  the  marshes  to  Columbia,  due  north  of  him,  which 
is  the  State  capital  of  South  Carolina.  He  reached  it  on 
February  17,  1865.  The  intended  concentration  of  the 
South  at  Augusta  was  broken  up.  The  retreating  Con- 
federates set  fire  to  great  stores  of  cotton  and  the  unfor- 
tunate city  was  burnt,  a  calamity  for  which  the  South,  by 
a  natural  but  most  unjust  mistake,  blamed  Sherman.  The 
railway  communications  of  Charleston  were  now  certain 
to  be  severed;  so  the  Confederates  were  forced  to  evacu- 
ate it,  and  on  February  18,  1865,  the  North  occupied  the 
chief  home  of  the  misbegotten  political  ideals  of  the  South 
and  of  its  real  culture  and  chivalry. 

Admiral  Porter  (for  age  and  ill-health  had  come  upon 
Farragut)  was  ready  at  sea  to  co-operate  with  Sherman. 
Thomas'  army  in  Tennessee  had  not  been  allowed  by 
Grant  to  go  into  winter  quarters.  A  part  of  it  under  Scho- 
field  was  brought  to  Washington  and  there  shipped  for 
North  Carolina,  where,  ever  since  Burnside's  successful 
expedition  in  1862,  the  Union  Government  had  held  the 
ports  north  of  Wilmington.  Wilmington  itself  was  the 
only  port  left  to  the  South,  and  Richmond  had  now  come 


436  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  depend  largely  on  the  precarious  and  costly  supplies 
which  could  still,  notwithstanding  the  blockade,  be  run 
into  that  harbour.  At  the  end  of  December,  Butler,  act- 
ing in  flagrant  disobedience  to  Grant,  had  achieved  his 
crowning  failure  in  a  joint  expedition  with  Porter  against 
Wilmington.  But  Porter  was  not  discouraged,  nor  was 
Grant,  who  from  beginning  to  end  of  his  career  had 
worked  well  together  with  the  Navy.  On  February  8, 
Porter,  this  time  supported  by  an  energetic  general, 
Terry,  effected  a  brilliant  capture  of  Fort  Fisher  at  the 
mouth  of  Wilmington  harbour.  The  port  was  closed  to 
the  South.  On  the  22nd,  the  city  itself  fell  to  Schofield, 
and  Sherman  had  now  this  sea  base  at  hand  if  he  needed 
it. 

Meanwhile  Grant's  entrenchments  on  the  east  of  Rich- 
mond and  Petersburg  were  still  extending  southward,  and 
Lee's  defences  had  been  stretched  till  they  covered  nearly 
forty  miles.  Grant's  lines  now  cut  the  principal  railway 
southward  from  the  huge  fortress,  and  he  was  able  effect- 
ually to  interrupt  communication  by  road  to  the  south- 
west. There  could  be  little  doubt  that  Richmond  would 
fall  soon,  and  the  real  question  was  coming  to  be  whether 
Lee  and  his  army  could  escape  from  Richmond  and  still 
carry  on  the  war. 

The  appointment  of  Lee  as  General-in-Chief  was  not 
too  late  to  bear  one  consequence  which  may  have  pro- 
longed the  war  a  little.  Joseph  Johnston,  whose  ability 
in  a  campaign  of  constant  retirement  before  overwhelm- 
ing force  had  been  respected  and  redoubted  by  Sherman, 
had  been  discarded  by  Davis  in  the  previous  July.  He 
was  now  put  in  command  of  the  forces  which  it  was  hoped 
to  concentrate  against  Sherman,  with  a  view  to  holding 
up  his  northward  advance  and  preventing  him  from  join- 
ing hands  with  Grant  before  Richmond.  There  were  alto- 
gether about  89,000  Confederate  troops  scattered  in  the 
Carolinas,  Georgia,  and  Florida,  and  there  would  be 
about  the  same  number  under  Sherman  when  Schofield  in 
North  Carolina  could  join  him,  but  the  number  which 
Johnston  could  now  collect  together  seems  never  to  have 


j  THE  END  437 

exceeded  33,000.  It  was  Shermanls  task  by  the  rapidity 
of  his  movements  to  prevent  a  very  formidable  concen- 
tration against  him.  Johnston  on  the  other  hand  must 
hinder  if  he  could  Sherman's  junction  with  Schofield.  Just 
before  that  junction  took  place  he  narrowly  missed  deal- 
ing a  considerable  blow  to  Sherman's  army  at  the  battle 
of  Bentonville  in  the  heart  of  North  Carolina,  but  had  in 
the  end  to  withdraw  within  an  entrenched  position  where 
Sherman  would  not  attack  him,  but  which  upon  the  ar- 
rival of  Schofield  he  was  forced  to  abandon.  On  March 
23,  1865,  Sherman  took  possession  of  the  town  and  rail- 
way junction  of  Goldsborough  between  Raleigh  and  New 
Berne.  From  Savannah  to  Goldsborough  he  had  led  his 
army  425  miles  in  fifty  days,  amid  disadvantages  of 
ground  and  of  weather  which  had  called  forth  both  ex- 
traordinary endurance  and  mechanical  skill  on  the  part  of 
his  men.  He  lay  now  140  miles  south  of  Petersburg  by 
the  railway.  The  port  of  New  Berne  to  the  east  of  him 
on  the  estuary  of  the  Neuse  gave  him  a  sure  base  of  sup- 
plies, and  would  enable  him  quickly  to  move  his  army  by 
sea  to  Petersburg  and  Richmond  if  Grant  should  so  de- 
cide. The  direction  in  which  Johnston  would  now  fall 
back  lay  inland  up  the  Neuse  Valley,  also  along  a  rail- 
way, towards  Greensborough,  some  150  miles  south-west 
of  Petersburg;  Greensborough  was  connected  by  another 
railway  with  Petersburg  and  Richmond,  and  along  this 
line  Lee  might  attempt  to  retire  and  join  him. 

All  this  time  whatever  designs  Lee  had  of  leaving 
Richmond  were  suspended  because  the  roads  in  that 
weather  were  too  bad  for  his  transport;  and,  while  of 
necessity  he  waited,  his  possible  openings  narrowed. 
Philip  Sheridan  had  now  received  the  coveted  rank  of 
Major-General,  which  McClellan  had  resigned  on  the 
day  on  which  he  was  defeated  for  the  Presidency.  The 
North  delighted  to  find  in  his  achievements  the  dashing 
quality  which  appeals  to  civilian  imagination,  and  Grant 
now  had  in  him,  as  well  as  in  Sherman,  a  lieutenant  who 
would  faithfully  make  his  chief's  purposes  his  own,  and 
who  would  execute  them  with  independent  decision.  The 


438  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cold,  in  which  his  horses  suffered,  had  driven  Sheridan 
into  winter  quarters,  but  on  February  27  he  was  able  to 
start  up  the  Shenandoah  Valley  again  with  10,000  cav- 
alry. Most  of  the  Confederate  cavalry  under  Early  had 
now  been  dispersed,  mainly  for  want  of  forage  in  the 
desolated  valley;  the  rest  were  now  dispersed  by  Sheri- 
dan, and  the  greater  part  of  Early' s  small  force  of  in- 
fantry with  all  his  artillery  were  captured.  There  was  a 
garrison  in  Lynchburg,  80  or  90  miles  west  of  Richmond, 
which  though  strong  enough  to  prevent  Sheridan's  cav- 
alry from  capturing  that  place  was  not  otherwise  of  ac- 
count; but  there  was  no  Confederate  force  in  the  field 
except  Johnston's  men  near  enough  to  co-operate  with 
Lee;  only  some  small  and  distant  armies,  hundreds  of 
miles  away  with  the  railway  communication  between  them 
and  the  East  destroyed.  Sheridan  now  broke  up  the  rail- 
way and  canal  communication  on  the  north-west  side  of 
Richmond.  He  was  to  have  gone  on  south  and  eventually 
joined  Sherman  if  he  could;  but,  finding  himself  stopped 
for  the  time  by  floods  in  the  upper  valley  of  the  James, 
he  rode  past  the  north  of  Richmond,  and  on  March  19 
joined  Grant,  to  put  his  cavalry  and  brains  at  his  service 
when  Grant  judged  that  the  moment  for  his  final  effort 
had  come. 

On  March  4,  1865,  Abraham  Lincoln  took  office  for 
the  second  time  as  President  of  the  United  States.  There 
was  one  new  and  striking  feature  in  the  simple  cere- 
monial, the  presence  of  a  battalion  of  negro  troops  in  his 
escort.  This  time,  though  he  would  say  no  sanguine 
word,  it  cannot  have  been  a  long  continuance  of  war  that 
filled  his  thoughts,  but  the  scarcely  less  difficult  though 
far  happier  task  of  restoring  the  fabric  of  peaceful  society 
in  the  conquered  South.  His  difficulties  were  now  likely 
to  come  from  the  North  no  less  than  the  South.  Tenta- 
tive proposals  which  he  had  once  or  twice  made  suggest 
the  spirit  in  which  he  would  have  felt  his  way  along  this 
new  path.  In  the  inaugural  address  which  he  now  de- 
livered that  spirit  is  none  the  less  perceptible  because  he 
spoke  of  the  past.  The  little  speech  at  Gettysburg,  with 


THE  END  439 

its  singular  perfection  of  form,  and  the  "  Second  Inau- 
gural "•  are  the  chief  outstanding  examples  of  his  peculiar 
oratorical  power.  The  comparative  rank  of  his  oratory 
need  not  be  discussed,  for  at  any  rate  it  was  individual 
and  unlike  that  of  most  other  great  speakers  in  history, 
though  perhaps  more  like  that  of  some  great  speeches  in 
drama. 

But  there  is  a  point  of  some  moment  in  which  the 
Second  Inaugural  does  invite  a  comment,  and  a  comment 
which  should  be  quite  explicit.  Probably  no  other  speech 
of  a  modern  statesman  uses  so  unreservedly  the  language 
of  intense  religious  feeling.  The  occasion  made  it  nat- 
ural; neither  the  thought  nor  the  words  are  in  any  way 
conventional;  no  sensible  reader  now  could  entertain  a 
suspicion  that  the  orator  spoke  to  the  heart  of  the  people 
but  did  not  speak  from  his  own  heart.  But  an  old  Illinois 
attorney,  who  thought  he  knew  the  real  Lincoln  behind 
the  President,  might  have  wondered  whether  the  real 
Lincoln  spoke  here.  For  Lincoln's  religion,  like  every- 
thing else  in  his  character,  became,  when  he  was  famous, 
a  stock  subject  of  discussion  among  his  old  associates. 
Many  said  "  he  was  a  Christian  but  did  not  know  it." 
Some  hinted,  with  an  air  of  great  sagacity,  that  "  so  far 
from  his  being  a  Christian  or  a  religious  man,  the  less 
said  about  it  the  better."  In  early  manhood  he  broke 
away  for  ever  from  the  scheme  of  Christian  theology 
which  was  probably  more  or  less  common  to  the  very 
various  Churches  which  surrounded  him.  He  had  avowed 
this  sweeping  denial  with  a  freedom  which  pained  some 
friends,  perhaps  rather  by  its  rashness  than  by  its  im- 
piety, and  he  was  apt  to  regard  the  procedure  of  theolo- 
gians as  a  blasphemous  twisting  of  the  words  of  Christ. 
He  rejected  that  belief  in  miracles  and  in  the  literally  in- 
spired accuracy  of  the  Bible  narrative  which  was  no  doubt 
held  as  fundamental  by  all  these  Churches.  He  rejected 
no  less  any  attempt  to  substitute  for  this  foundation  the 
belief  in  any  priestly  authority  or  in  the  authority  of  any 
formal  and  earthly  society  called  the  Church.  With  this 
total  independence  of  the  expressed  creeds  of  his  neigh- 


440  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

hours  he  still  went  and  took  his  boys  to  Presbyterian  pub- 
lic worship — their  mother  was  an  Episcopalian  and  his 
own  parents  had  been  Baptists.  He  loved  the  Bible  anc" 
knew  it  intimately — he  is  said  also  by  the  way  to  have 
stored  in  his  memory  a  large  number  of  hymns.  In  the 
year  before  his  death  he  wrote  to  Speed :  "  I  am  profit- 
ably engaged  in  reading  the  Bible.  Take  all  of  this  book 
upon  reason  that  you  can  and  the  balance  upon  faith  and 
you  will  live  and  die  a  better  man."  It  was  not  so  much 
the  Old  Testament  as  the  New  Testament  and  what  he 
called  "  the  true  spirit  of  Christ "  that  he  loved  espe- 
cially, and  took  with  all  possible  seriousness  as  the  rule 
of  life.  His  theology,  in  the  narrower  sense,  may  be 
said  to  have  been  limited  to  an  intense  belief  in  a  vast 
and  over-ruling  Providence — the  lighter  forms  of  super- 
stitious feelings  which  he  is  known  to  have  had  in  com- 
mon with  most  frontiersmen  were  apparently  of  no  im- 
portance in  his  life.  And  this  Providence,  darkly  spoken 
of,  was  certainly  conceived  by  him  as  intimately  and 
kindly  related  to  his  own  life.  In  his  Presidential  can- 
didature, when  he  owned  to  some  one  that  the  opposition 
of  clergymen  hurt  him  deeply,  he  is  said  to  have  confessed 
to  being  no  Christian  and  to  have  continued,  "  I  know  that 
there  is  a  God  and  that  He  hates  injustice  and  slavery.  I 
see  the  storm  coming  and  I  know  that  His  hand  is  in  it 
If  He  has  a  place  and  work  for  me,  and  I  think  He  has, 
I  believe  I  am  ready.  I  am  nothing,  but  truth  is  every'- 
thing;  I  know  I  am  right  because  I  know  that  liberty  is 
right,  for  Christ  teaches  it,  and  Christ  is  God.  I  have 
told  them  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand, 
and  Christ  and  reason  say  the  same,  and  they  will  find  it 
so."  When  old  acquaintances  said  that  he  had  no  religion 
they  based  their  opinion  on  such  remarks  as  that  the  God, 
of  whom  he  had  just  been  speaking  solemnly,  was  "  not 
a  person."  It  would  be  unprofitable  to  enquire  what  he, 
and  many  others,  meant  by  this  expression,  but,  later  at 
any  rate,  this  "  impersonal  "  power  was  one  with  which 
he  could  hold  commune.  His  robust  intellect,  impatient 
of  unproved  assertion,  was  unlikely  to  rest  in  the  com- 


THE  END  ,     441 

mon  assumption  that  things  dimly  seen  may  be  treated  as 
not  being  there.  So  humorous  a  man  was  also  unlikely  to 
be  too  conceited  to  say  his  prayers.  At  any  rate  he  said 
them;  said  them  intently;  valued  the  fact  that  others 
prayed  for  him  and  for  the  nation;  and,  as  in  official  Proc- 
lamations (concerning  days  of  national  religious  observ- 
ance) he  could  wield,  like  no  other  modern  writer,  the 
language  of  the  Prayer  Book,  so  he  would  speak  of  prayer 
without  the  smallest  embarrassment  in  talk  with  a  gen- 
eral or  a  statesman.  It  is  possible  that  this  was  a  devel- 
opment of  later  years.  Lincoln  did  not,  like  most  of  us, 
arrest  his  growth.  To  Mrs.  Lincoln  it  seemed  that  with 
the  death  of  their  child,  Willie,  a  change  came  over  his 
whole  religious  outlook.  It  well  might;  and  since  that 
grief,  which  came  while  his  troubles  were  beginning,  much 
else  had  come  to  Lincoln;  and  now  through  four  years  of 
unsurpassed  trial  his  capacity  had  steadily  grown,  and  his 
delicate  fairness,  his  pitifulness,  his  patience,  his  modesty 
had  grown  therewith.  Here  is  one  of  the  few  speeches 
ever  delivered  by  a  great  man  at  the  crisis  of  his  fate  on 
the  sort  of  occasion  which  a  tragedian  telling  his  story 
would  have  devised  for  him.  This  man  had  stood  alone 
in  the  dark.  He  had  done  justice;  he  had  loved  mercy; 
he  had  walked  humbly  with  his  God.  The  reader  to 
whom  religious  utterance  makes  little  appeal  will  not 
suppose  that  his  imaginative  words  stand  for  no  real  ex- 
perience. The  reader  whose  piety  knows  no  questions 
will  not  be  pained  to  think  that  this  man  had  professed  no 
faith. 

He  said,  "  Fellow  Countrymen :  At  this  second  ap- 
pearance to  take  the  oath  of  the  Presidential  office,  there 
is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address  than  there  was 
at  the  first.  Then  a  statement,  somewhat  in  detail,  of  a 
course  to  be  pursued,  seemed  fitting  and  proper.  Now, 
at  the  expiration  of  four  years,  during  which  public 
declarations  have  been  constantly  called  forth  on  every 
point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs 
the  energies  and  engrosses  the  attention  of  the  nation, 
little  that  is  new  could  be  presented.  The  progress  of 


442  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

our  arms,  upon  which  all  else  chiefly  depends,  is  as  well 
known  to  the  public  as  to  myself;  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reason- 
ably satisfactory  and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope 
for  the  future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"  On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this  four  years  ago, 
all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil 
war.  All  dreaded  it — all  sought  to  avert  it.  While  the 
inaugural  address  was  being  delivered  from  this  place, 
devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without  war, 
insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city  seeking  to  destroy  it 
without  war — seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide 
effects,  by  negotiation.  Both  parties  deprecated  war;  but 
one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than  let  the  nation 
survive;  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than  let 
it  perish.  And  the  war  came. 

"  One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  coloured 
slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but  local- 
ised in  the  Southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves  constituted 
a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest.  All  knew  that  this 
interest  was,  somehow,  the  cause  of  the  war.  To 
strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend  this  interest  was  the 
object  for  which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the  Union, 
even  by  war;  while  the  Government  claimed  no  right  to 
do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial  enlargement  of 
it.  Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or 
the  duration  which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither  ex- 
pected that  the  cause  of  the  conflict  might  cease  with,  or 
even  before,  the  conflict  itself  should  cease.  Each  looked 
for  an  easier  triumph,  and  a  result  less  fundamental  and 
astounding.  Both  read  the  same  Bible,  and  pray  to  the 
same  God;  and  each  invokes  His  aid  against  the  other. 
It  may  seem  strange  that  any  men  should  dare  to  ask  a 
just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from  the 
sweat  of  other  men's  faces;  but  let  us  judge  not,  that  we 
be  not  judged.  The  prayers  of  both  could  not  be  an- 
swered— that  of  neither  has  been  answered  fully.  The 
Almighty  has  His  own  purposes.  '  Woe  unto  the  world 
because  of  offenses!  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses 
come ;  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh.' 


THE  END  443 

If  we  shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  those 
offenses,  which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  must  needs 
come,  but  which,  having  continued  through  His  appointed 
time,  He  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives  to  both 
North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as  the  woe  due  to 
those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we  discern  therein 
any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  be- 
lievers in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him?  Fondly 
do  we  hope — fervently  do  we  pray — that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with 
the  lash  shall  be  paid  with  another  drawn  with  the  sword, 
as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be 
said,  '  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.' 

"  With  malice  toward  none;  with  charity  for  all;  with 
firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let 
us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in;  to  bind  up  the 
nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the 
battle,  and  for  his  widow,  and  his  orphan — to  do  all 
which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace 
among  ourselves,  and  with  all  nations." 

Lincoln's  own  commentary  may  follow  upon  his  speech : 
"  March  15,  1865.  Dear  Mr.  Weed, — Every  one  likes 
a  little  compliment.  Thank  you  for  yours  on  my  little 
notification  speech  and  on  the  recent  inaugural  address. 
I  expect  the  latter  to  wear  as  well  as — perhaps  better 
than — anything  I  have  produced;  but  I  believe  it  is  not 
immediately  popular.  Men  are  not  flattered  by  being 
shown  that  there  has  been  a  difference  of  purpose  between 
the  Almighty  and  them.  To  deny  it  however  in  this  case 
is  to  deny  that  there  is  a  God  governing  the  world.  It  is 
a  truth  which  I  thought  needed  to  be  told,  and,  as  what- 
ever of  humiliation  there  is  in  it  falls  most  directly  on 
myself,  I  thought  others  might  afford  for  me  to  tell  it. 

"  Truly  yours, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


444  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

On  March  20,  1865,  a  period  of  bright  sunshine  seems 
to  have  begun  in  Lincoln's  life.  Robert  Lincoln  had  some 
time  before  finished  his  course  at  Harvard,  and  his  father 
had  written  to  Grant  modestly  asking  him  if  he  could  sug- 
gest the  way,  accordant  with  discipline  and  good  example, 
in  which  the  young  man  could  best  see  something  of  mili- 
tary life.  Grant  immediately  had  him  on  to  his  staff, 
with  a  commission  as  captain,  and  now  Grant  invited 
Lincoln  to  come  to  his  headquarters  for  a  holiday  visit. 
There  was  much  in  it  besides  holiday,  for  Grant  was  rap- 
idly maturing  his  plans  for  the  great  event  and  wanted 
Lincoln  near.  Moreover  Sheridan  had  just  arrived,  and 
while  Lincoln  was  there  Sherman  came  from  Goldsbor- 
ough  with  Admiral  Porter  for  consultation  as  to  Sher- 
man's next  move.  Peremptory  as  he  was  in  any  necessary 
political  instructions,  Lincoln  was  now  happy  to  say  noth- 
ing of  military  matters,  beyond  expressing  his  earnest 
desire  that  the  final  overmastering  of  the  Confederate 
armies  should  be  accomplished  with  the  least  further 
bloodshed  possible,  and  indulging  the  curiosity  that  any 
other  guest  might  have  shown.  A  letter  home  to  Mrs. 
Lincoln  betrays  the  interest  with  which  he  heard  heavy 
firing  quite  near,  which  seemed  to  him  a  great  battle,  but 
did  not  excite  those  who  knew.  Then  there  were  rides  in 
the  country  with  Grant's  staff.  Lincoln  in  his  tall  hat  and 
frock  coat  was  a  marked  and  curious  figure  on  a  horse. 
He  had  once,  by  the  way,  insisted  on  riding  with  Butler, 
catechising  him  with  remorseless  chaff  on  engineering 
matters  and  forbidding  his  chief  engineer  to  prompt  him, 
along  six  miles  of  cheering  Northern  troops  within  easy 
sight  and  shot  of  the  Confederate  soldiers  to  whom  his 
hat  and  coat  identified  him.  But,  however  odd  a  figure, 
he  impressed  Grant's  officers  as  a  good  and  bold  horse- 
man. Then,  after  Sherman's  arrival,  there  evidently  was 
no  end  of  talk.  Sherman  was  at  first  amused  by  the  Pres- 
ident's anxiety  as  to  whether  his  army  was  quite  safe 
without  him  at  Goldsborough;  but  that  keen-witted  sol- 
dier soon  received,  as  he  has  said,  an  impression  both  of 


THE  END  445 

goodness  and  of  greatness  such  as  no  other  man  ever 
gave  him. 

What  especially  remained  on  Sherman's  and  on 
Porter's  mind  was  the  recollection  of  Lincoln's  over- 
powering desire  for  mercy  and  for  conciliation  with  the 
conquered.  Indeed  Sherman  blundered  later  in  the  terms 
he  first  accepted  from  Johnston;  for  he  did  not  see  that 
Lincoln's  clemency  for  Southern  leaders  and  desire  for 
the  welfare  of  the  South  included  no  mercy  at  all  for  the 
political  principle  of  the  Confederacy.  Grant  was  not 
exposed  to  any  such  mistake,  for  a  week  or  two  before 
Lee  had  made  overtures  to  him  for  some  sort  of  confer- 
ence and  Lincoln  had  instantly  forbidden  him  to  confer 
with  Lee  for  any  purpose  but  that  of  his  unconditional 
surrender.  What,  apart  from  the  reconstruction  of 
Southern  life  and  institutions,  was  in  part  weighing  with 
Lincoln  was  'the  question  of  punishments  for  rebellion. 
By  Act  of  Congress  the  holders  of  high  political  and  mili- 
tary office  in  the  South  were  liable  as  traitors,  and  there 
*ras  now  talk  of  hanging  in  the  North.  Later  events 
showed  that  a  very  different  sentiment  would  make  itself 
heard  when  the  victory  came ;  but  Lincoln  was  much  con- 
cerned. To  some  one  who  spoke  to  him  of  this  matter 
he  exclaimed,  "  What  have  I  to  do  with  you,  ye  sons  of 
Zeruiah,  that  ye  should  this  day  be  adversaries  unto  me? 
Shall  there  any  man  be  put  to  death  this  day  in  Israel?  " 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  prerogative  of  mercy 
would  have  been  vigorously  used  in  his  hands,  but  he  did 
not  wish  for  a  conflict  on  this  matter  at  all;  and  Grant 
was  taught,  in  a  parable  about  a  teetotal  Irishman  who 
forgave  being  served  with  liquor  unbeknownst  to  himself, 
that  zeal  in  capturing  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  colleagues 
was  not  expected  of  him. 

While  Lincoln  was  at  Grant's  headquarters  at  City 
Point,  Lee,  hoping  to  recover  the  use  of  the  roads  to  the 
south-west,  endeavoured  to  cause  a  diversion  of  the  be- 
siegers' strength  by  a  sortie  on  his  east  front.  It  failed 
and  gave  the  besiegers  a  further  point  of  vantage.  On 
April  i  Sheridan  was  sent  far  round  the  south  of  Lee's 


446  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lines,  and  in  a  battle  at  a  point  called  Five  Forks  estab- 
lished himself  in  possession  of  the  railway  running  due 
west  from  Petersburg.  The  defences  were  weakest  on 
this  side,  and  to  prevent  the  entrance  of  the  enemy  there 
Lee  was  bound  to  withdraw  troops  from  other  quarters. 
On  the  two  following  days  Grant's  army  delivered 
assaults  at  several  points  on  the  east  side  of  the  Peters- 
burg defences,  penetrating  the  outer  lines  and  pushing  on 
against  the  inner  fortifications  of  the  town.  On  Sunday, 
April  2,  Jefferson  Davis  received  in  church  word  from 
Lee  to  make  instant  preparation  for  departure,  as  Peters- 
burg could  not  be  held  beyond  that  night  and  Richmond 
must  fall  immediately.  That  night  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment left  the  capital,  and  Lee's  evacuation  of  the 
fortress  began  the  next  day.  Lincoln  was  sent  for.  He 
came  by  sea,  and  to  the  astonishment  and  alarm  of  the 
naval  officers  made  his  way  at  once  to  Richmond  with 
entirely  insufficient  escort.  There  he  strolled  about,  hand 
in  hand  with  his  little  son  Tad,  greeted  by  exultant  ne- 
groes, and  stared  at  by  angry  or  curious  Confederates, 
while  he  visited  the  former  prison  of  the  Northern  pris- 
oners and  other  places  of  more  pleasant  attraction  with- 
out receiving  any  annoyance  from  the  inhabitants.  He 
had  an  interesting  talk  with  Campbell,  formerly  a 
Supreme  Court  judge,  and  a  few  weeks  back  one  of 
Davis'  commissioners  at  Hampton  Roads.  Campbell 
obtained  permission  to  convene  a  meeting  of  the  members 
of  the  Virginia  Legislature  with  a  view  to  speedier  sur~ 
render  by  Lee's  army.  But  the  permission  was  revoked, 
for  he  somewhat  clumsily  mistook  its  terms,  and,  more- 
over, the  object  in  view  had  meantime  been  accomplished. 
Jefferson  Davis  was  then  making  his  way  with  his  min- 
isters to  Johnston's  army.  When  they  arrived  he  and 
they  held  council  with  Johnston  and  Beauregard.  He 
would  issue  a  Proclamation  which  would  raise  him  many 
soldiers  and  he  would  "  whip  them  yet."  No  one  an- 
swered him.  At  last  he  asked  the  opinion  of  Johnston, 
who  bluntly  undeceived  him  as  to  facts,  and  told  him  that 
further  resistance  would  be  a  crime,  and  got  his  permis- 


THE  END  447 

sion  to  treat  with  Sherman,  while  the  fallen  Confederate 
President  escaped  further  south. 

Lee's  object  was  to  make  his  way  along  the  north  side 
of  the  Appomattox  River,  which  flows  east  through  Pet- 
ersburg to  the  James  estuary,  and  at  a  certain  point  strike 
southwards  towards  Johnston's  army.  He  fought  for  his 
escape  with  all  his  old  daring  and  skill,  while  hardly  less 
vigorous  and  skilful  efforts  were  made  not  only  to  pur- 
sue, but  to  surround  him.  Grant  in  his  pursuit  sent 
letters  of  courteous  entreaty  that  he  would  surrender  and 
spare  further  slaughter.  Northern  cavalry  got  ahead  of 
Lee,  tearing  up  the  railway  lines  he  had  hoped  to  use  and 
blocking  possible  mountain  passes;  and  his  supply  trains 
were  being  cut  off.  After  a  long  running  fight  and  one 
last  fierce  battle  on  April  6,  at  a  place  called  Sailor's 
Creek,  Lee  found  himself  on  April  9  at  Appomattox 
Court  House,  some  seventy  miles  west  of  Petersburg,  sur- 
rounded beyond  hope  of  escape.  On  that  day  he  and 
Grant  with  their  staffs  met  in  a  neighbouring  farmhouse. 
Those  present  recalled  afterwards  the  contrast  of  the 
stately  Lee  and  the  plain,  ill-dressed  Grant  arriving  mud- 
splashed  in  his  haste.  Lee  greeted  Meade  as  an  old  ac- 
quaintance and  remarked  how  grey  he  had  grown  with 
years.  Meade  gracefully  replied  that  Lee  and  not  age 
was  responsible  for  that.  Grant  had  started  "  quite  jubi- 
lant "  on  the  news  that  Lee  was  ready  to  surrender,  but 
in  presence  of  "  the  downfall  of  a  foe  who  had  fought  so 
long  and  valiantly  "  he  fell  into  sadness.  Pleasant  "  talk 
of  old  army  times  "  followed,  and  he  had  almost  for- 
gotten, as  he  declares,  the  business  in  hand,  when  Lee 
asked  him  on  what  terms  he  would  accept  surrender. 
Grant  sat  down  and  wrote,  not  knowing  when  he  began 
what  he  should  go  on  to  write.  As  he  wrote  he  thought 
of  the  handsome  sword  Lee  carried.  Instantly  he  added 
to  his  terms  permission  for  every  Southern  officer  to  keep 
his  sword  and  his  horse.  Lee  read  the  paper  and  when 
he  came  to  that  point  was  visibly  moved.  He  gauged  his 
man,  and  he  ventured  to  ask  something  more.  He 
thought,  he  said,  Grant  might  not  know  that  the  Confed« 


448  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

erate  cavalry  troopers  owned  their  own  horses.  Grant 
said  they  would  be  badly  wanted  on  the  farms  and  added 
a  further  concession  accordingly.  "  This  will  have  the 
best  possible  effect  on  the  men,"  said  Lee.  "  It  will  do 
much  towards  conciliating  our  people."  Grant  included 
also  in  his  written  terms  words  of  general  pardon  to  Con- 
federate officers  for  their  treason.  This  was  an  inad- 
vertent breach,  perhaps,  of  Lincoln's  orders,  but  it  was 
one  which  met  with  no  objection.  Lee  retired  into  civil 
life  and  devoted  himself  thereafter  to  his  neighbours' 
service  as  head  of  a  college  in  Virginia — much  respected, 
very  free  with  alms  to  old  soldiers  and  not  much  caring 
whether  they  had  fought  for  the  South  or  for  the  North. 
Grant  did  not  wait  to  set  foot  in  the  capital  which  he  had 
conquered,  but,  the  main  business  being  over,  posted  off 
with  all  haste  to  see  his  son  settled  in  at  school. 

Lincoln  remained  at  City  Point  till  April  8,  when  he 
started  back  by  steamer.  Those  who  were  with  him  on 
the  two  days'  voyage  told  afterwards  of  the  happy  talk, 
as  of  a  quiet  family  party  rejoicing  in  the  return  of  peace. 
Somebody  said  that  Jefferson  Davis  really  ought  to  be 
hanged.  The  reply  came  in  the  quotation  that  he  might 
almost  have  expected,  "Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged." 
On  the  second  day,  Sunday,  the  President  read  to  them 
parts  of  "  Macbeth."  Sumner,  who  was  one  of  them,  re- 
called that  he  read  twice  over  the  lines, 

"  Duncan  is  in  his  grave ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well ; 
Treason  has  done  his  worst ;  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further." 

On  the  Tuesday,  April  ii,  a  triumphant  crowd  came 
to  the  White  House  to  greet  Lincoln.  He  made  them  a 
speech,  carefully  prepared  in  substance  rather  than  in 
form,  dealing  with  the  question  of  reconstruction  in  the 
South,  with  special  reference  to  what  was  already  in 
progress  in  Louisiana.  The  precise  points  of  controversy 
that  arose  in  this  regard  hardly  matter  now.  Lincoln  dis- 


THE  END  449 

claimed  any  wish  to  insist  pedantically  upon  any  detailed 
plan  of  his;  but  he  declared  his  wish  equally  to  keep  clear 
of  any  merely  pedantic  points  of  controversy  with  any  in 
the  South  who  were  loyally  striving  to  revive  State  Gov- 
ernment with  acceptance  of  the  Union  and  without 
slavery;  and  he  urged  that  genuine  though  small  begin- 
nings should  be  encouraged.  He  regretted  that  in  Louis- 
iana his  wish  for  the  enfranchisement  of  educated  negroes 
and  of  negro  soldiers  had  not  been  followed;  but  as  the 
freedom  of  the  negroes  was  unreservedly  accepted,  as 
provision  was  made  for  them  in  the  public  schools,  and 
the  new  State  constitution  allowed  the  Legislature  to  en- 
franchise them,  there  was  clear  gain.  "  Concede  that  the 
new  government  of  Louisiana  is  only  to  what  it  should  be 
as  the  egg  is  to  the  fowl,  we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by 
hatching  the"  egg  than  by  smashing  it.  What  has  been 
said  of  Louisiana  will  apply  generally  to  other  States.  So 
new  and  unprecedented,"  he  ended,  "  is  the  whole  case 
that  no  exclusive  and  inflexible  plan  can  safely  be  pre- 
scribed as  to  details  and  collaterals.  Such  exclusive  and 
inflexible  plan  would  surely  become  a  new  entanglement. 
Important  principles  may  and  must  be  inflexible.  In  the 
present  situation,  as  the  phrase  goes,  it  may  be  my  duty 
to  make  some  new  announcement  to  the  people  of  the 
South.  I  am  considering,  and  shall  not  fail  to  act  when 
satisfied  that  action  will  be  proper."  A  full  generation 
has  had  cause  to  lament  that  that  announcement  was  never 
to  be  made. 

On  Good  Friday,  April  14,  1865,  with  solemn  religious 
service  the  Union  flag  was  hoisted  again  on  Fort  Sumter 
by  General  Anderson,  its  old  defender.  On  that  morning 
there  was  a  Cabinet  Council  in  Washington.  Seward  was 
absent,  in  bed  with  an  injury  from  a  carriage  accident. 
Grant  was  there  a  little  anxious  to  get  news  from  Sher- 
man. Lincoln  was  in  a  happy  mood.  He  had  earlier  that 
morning  enjoyed  greatly  a  talk  with  Robert  Lincoln  about 
the  young  man's  new  experience  of  soldiering.  He  now 
told  Grant  and  the  Cabinet  that  good  news  was  coming 
from  Sherman.  He  knew  it,  he  said,  for  last  night  he  had 


450  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dreamed  a  dream,  which  had  come  to  him  several  times 
before.  In  this  dream,  whenever  it  came,  he  was  sailing 
in  a  ship  of  a  peculiar  build,  indescribable  but  always  the 
same,  and  being  borne  on  it  with  great  speed  towards  a 
dark  and  undefined  shore.  He  had  always  dreamed  this 
before  victory.  He  dreamed  it  before  Antietam,  before 
Murfreesborough,  before  Gettysburg,  before  Vicksburg. 
Grant  observed  bluntly  that  Murfreesborough  had  not 
been  a  victory,  or  of  any  consequence  anyway.  Lincoln 
persisted  on  this  topic  undeterred.  After  some  lesser 
business  they  discussed  the  reconstruction  of  the  South. 
Lincoln  rejoiced  that  Congress  had  adjourned  and  the 
"  disturbing  element "  in  it  could  not  hinder  the  work. 
Before  it  met  again,  "  if  we  are  wise  and  discreet  we 
shall  re-animate  the  States  and  get  their  governments  in 
successful  operation,  with  order  prevailing  and  the  Union 
re-established."  Lastly,  there  was  talk  of  the  treatment 
of  rebels  and  of  the  demand  that  had  been  heard  for 
"  persecution  "  and  "  bloody  work."  "  No  one  need  ex- 
pect me,"  said  Lincoln,  "  to  take  any  part  in  hanging  or 
killing  these  men,  even  the  worst  of  them.  Frighten 
them  out  of  the  country,  open  the  gates,  let  down  the 
bars,  scare  them  off."  "  Shoo,"  he  added,  throwing  up 
his  large  hands  like  a  man  scaring  sheep.  "  We  must 
extinguish  our  resentments  if  we  expect  harmony  and 
union.  There  is  too  much  of  the  desire  on  the  part  of 
some  of  our  very  good  friends  to  be  masters,  to  interfere 
with  and  dictate  to  those  States,  to  treat  the  people  not  as 
fellow  citizens;  there  is  too  little  respect  for  their  rights. 
I  do  not  sympathise  in  these  feelings."  Such  was  the 
tenor  of  his  last  recorded  utterance  on  public  affairs. 

In  the  afternoon  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  drove  together 
and  he  talked  to  her  with  keen  pleasure  of  the  life  they 
would  live  when  the  Presidency  was  over.  That  night 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  went  to  the  theatre,  for  the  day 
was  not  observed  as  in  England.  The  Grants  were  to 
have  been  with  them,  but  changed  their  minds  and  left 
Washington  that  day,  so  a  young  officer,  Major  Rath- 
bone,  and  the  lady  engaged  to  him,  both  of  them  there- 


THE  END  451 

after  ill-fated,  came  instead.  The  theatre  was  crowded; 
many  officers  returned  from  the  war  were  there  and  eager 
to  see  Lincoln.  The  play  was  "  Our  American  Cousin," 
a 'play  in  which  the  part  of  Lord  Dundreary  was  after- 
wards developed  and  made  famous.  Some  time  after  10 
o'clock,  at  a  point  in  the  play  which  it  is  said  no  person 
present  could  afterwards  remember,  a  shot  was  heard  in 
the  theatre  and  Abraham  Lincoln  fell  forward  upon  the 
front  of  the  box  unconscious  and  dying.  A  wild-looking 
man,  who  had  entered  the  box  unobserved  and  had  done 
his  work,  was  seen  to  strike  with  a  knife  at  Major  Rath- 
bone,  who  tried  to  seize  him.  Then  he  jumped  from  the 
box  to  the  stage ;  he  caught  a  spur  in  the  drapery  and  fell, 
breaking  the  small  bone  of  his  leg.  He  rose,  shouted 
"  Sic  semper  tyrannis,"  the  motto  of  Virginia,  disap- 
peared behind  the  scenes,  mounted  a  horse  that  was  in 
waiting  at  the  stage  door,  and  rode  away. 

This  was  John  Wilkes  Booth,  brother  of  a  famous 
actor  then  playing  "  Hamlet "  in  Boston.  He  was  an 
actor  too,  and  an  athletic  and  daring  youth.  In  him  that 
peculiarly  ferocious  political  passion  which  occasionally 
showed  itself  among  Southerners  was  further  inflamed 
by  brandy  and  by  that  ranting  mode  of  thought  which 
the  stage  develops  in  some  few.  He  was  the  leader  of  a 
conspiracy  which  aimed  at  compassing  the  deaths  of 
others  besides  Lincoln.  Andrew  Johnson,  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  was  to  die.  So  was  Seward.  That  same  night  one 
of  the  conspirators,  a  gigantic  boy  of  feeble  mind,  gained 
entrance  to  Seward's  house  and  wounded  three  people, 
including  Seward  himself,  who  was  lying  already  injured 
in  bed  and  received  four  or  five  wounds.  Neither  he  nor 
the  others  died.  The  weak-minded  or  mad  boy,  another 
man,  whose  offense  consisted  in  having  been  asked  to  kill 
Johnson  and  refused  to  do  so,  and  another  alleged  con- 
spirator, a  woman,  were  hanged  after  a  court-martial 
whose  proceedings  did  credit  neither  to  the  new  Presi- 
dent nor  to  others  concerned.  Booth  himself,  after  many 
adventures,  was  shot  in  a  barn  in  which  he  stood  at  bay 
and  which  had  been  set  on  fire  by  the  soldiers  pursuing 


452  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

him.  During  his  flight  he  is  said  to  have  felt  much  ag- 
grieved that  men  did  not  praise  him  as  they  had  praised 
Brutus  and  Cassius. 

There  were  then  in  the  South  many  broken  and  many 
permanently  embittered  men,  indeed  the  temper  which 
would  be  glad  at  Lincoln's  death  could  be  found  here  and 
there  and  notably  among  the  partisans  of  the  South  in 
Washington.  But,  if  it  be  wondered  what  measure  of 
sympathy  there  was  for  Booth's  dark  deed,  an  answer  lies 
in  the  fact  that  the  murder  of  Lincoln  would  at  no  time 
have  been  difficult  for  a  brave  man.  Fair  blows  were  now 
as  powerless  as  foul  to  arrest  the  end.  On  the  very  morn- 
ing when  Lincoln  and  Grant  at  the  Cabinet  had  been  tell- 
ing of  their  hopes  and  fears  for  Sherman,  Sherman  him- 
self at  Raleigh  in  North  Carolina  had  received  and  an- 
swered a  letter  from  Johnston  opening  negotiations  for  a 
peaceful  surrender.  Three  days  later  he  was  starting  by 
rail  for  Greensborough  when  word  came  to  him  from 
the  telegraph  operator  that  an  important  message  was 
upon  the  wire.  He  went  to  the  telegraph  box  and  heard 
it.  Then  he  swore  the  telegraph  operator  to  secrecy,  for 
he  feared  that  some  provocation  might  lead  to  terrible 
disorders  in  Raleigh,  if  his  army,  flushed  with  triumph, 
were  to  learn,  before  his  return  in  peace,  the  news  that 
for  many  days  after  hushed  their  accustomed  songs  and 
shouts  and  cheering  into  a  silence  which  was  long  remem- 
bered. He  went  off  to  meet  Johnston  and  requested  to 
be  with  him  alone  in  a  farmhouse  near.  There  he  told 
him  of  the  murder  of  Lincoln.  "  The  perspiration  came 
out  in  large  drops  on  Johnston's  forehead,"  says  Sher- 
man, who  watched  him  closely.  He  exclaimed  that  it  was 
a  disgrace  to  the  age.  Then  he  asked  to  know  whether 
Sherman  attributed  the  crime  to  the  Confederate  author- 
ities. Sherman  could  assure  him  that  no  one  dreamed  of 
such  a  suspicion  against  men  like  him  and  General  Lee; 
but  he  added  that  he  was  not  so  sure  of  "  Jefferson  Davis 
and  men  of  that  stripe."  Then  followed  some  delay, 
through  a  mistake  of  Sherman's  which  the  authorities  in 
Washington  reversed,  but  in  a  few  days  all  was  settled 


THE  END  453 

and  the  whole  of  the  forces  under  Johnston's  command 
laid  down  their  arms.  Twenty  years  later,  as  an  old  man 
and  infirm,  their  leader  left  his  Southern  home  to  be  pres- 
ent at  Sherman's  funeral,  where  he  caught  a  chill  from 
which  he  died  soon  after.  Jefferson  Davis  was  captured 
on  May  10,  near  the  borders  of  Florida.  He  was,  not 
without  plausible  grounds  but  quite  unjustly,  suspected  in 
regard  to  the  murder,  and  he  suffered  imprisonment  for 
some  time  till  President  Andrew  Johnson  released  him 
when  the  evidence  against  him  had  been  seen  to  be  worth- 
less. He  lived  many  years  in  Mississippi  and  wrote 
memoirs,  in  which  may  be  found  the  fullest  legal  argu- 
ment for  the  great  Secession,  his  own  view  of  his  quarrels 
with  Joseph  Johnston,  and  much  besides.  Amongst  other 
things  he  tells  how  when  they  heard  the  news  of  Lincoln's 
murder  some  troops  cheered,  but  he  was  truly  sorry  for 
the  reason  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  more  hostile  to  the 
cause  than  Lincoln.  It  is  disappointing  to  think,  of  one 
who  played  a  memorable  part  in  history  with  much  deter- 
mination, that  in  this  reminiscence  he  sized  his  stature  as 
a  man  fairly  accurately.  After  several  other  surrenders 
of  Southern  towns  and  small  scattered  forces,  the  Con- 
federate General  Kirby  Smith,  in  Texas,  surrendered  to 
General  Canby,  Banks'  successor,  on  May  26,  and  after 
four  years  and  forty-four  days  armed  resistance  to  the 
Union  was  at  an  end. 

On  the  night  of  Good  Friday,  Abraham  Lincoln  had 
been  carried  still  unconscious  to  a  house  near  the  theatre. 
His  sons  and  other  friends  were  summoned.  He  never 
regained  consciousness.  "A  look  of  unspeakable  peace," 
say  his  secretaries  who  were  there,  "  came  over  his  worn 
features."  At  7.22  on  the  morning  of  April  15,  Stanton, 
watching  him  more  closely  than  the  rest,  told  them  what 
had  passed  in  the  words,  "  Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages." 

The  mourning  of  a  nation,  voiced  to  later  times  by 
some  of  the  best  lines  of  more  than  one  of  its  poets,  and 
deeper  and  more  prevailing  for  the  lack  of  comprehen- 
sion which  some  had  shown  him  before,  followed  his  body 
in  its  slow  progress — stopping  at  Baltimore,  where  once 


454  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  life  had  been  threatened,  for  the  homage  of  vast 
crowds;  stopping  at  New  York,  where  among  the  huge 
assembly  old  General  Scott  came  to  bid  him  affectionate 
farewell;  stopping  at  other  cities  for  the  tribute  of  rev- 
erent multitudes — to  Springfield,  his  home  of  so  many 
years,  where,  on  May  4,  1865,  it  was  laid  to  rest.  After 
the  burial  service  the  "  Second  Inaugural  "  was  read  over 
his  grave,  nor  could  better  words  than  his  own  have  been 
chosen  to  honour  one  who  "  with  malice  toward  none, 
with  charity  toward  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God 
gave  him  to  see  the  right,  had  striven  on  to  finish  the 
work  that  he  was  in."  In  England,  apart  from  more 
formal  tokens  of  a  late-learnt  regard  and  an  unfeigned 
regret,  Punch  embodied  in  verse  of  rare  felicity  the  manly 
contrition  of  its  editor  for  ignorant  derision  in  past  years; 
and  Queen  Victoria  symbolised  best  of  all,  and  most  ac- 
ceptably to  Americans,  the  feeling  of  her  people  when  she 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  "  as  a  widow  to  a  widow."  Nor, 
though  the  transactions  in  which  he  bore  his  part  were 
but  little  understood  in  this  country  till  they  were  half 
forgotten,  has  tradition  ever  failed  to  give  him,  by  just  in- 
stinct, his  rank  with  the  greatest  of  our  race. 

Many  great  deeds  had  been  done  in  the  war.  The 
greatest  was  the  keeping  of  the  North  together  in  an  en- 
terprise so  arduous,  and  an  enterprise  for  objects  so  con- 
fusedly related  as  the  Union  and  freedom.  Abraham 
Lincoln  did  this;  nobody  else  could  have  done  it;  to  do 
it  he  bore  on  his  sole  shoulders  such  a  weight  of  care  and 
pain  as  few  other  men  have  borne.  When  it  was  over  it 
seemed  to  the  people  that  he  had  all  along  been  thinking 
their  real  thoughts  for  them ;  but  they  knew  that  this  was 
because  he  had  fearlessly  thought  for  himself.  He  had 
been  able  to  save  the  nation,  partly  because  he  saw  that 
unity  was  not  to  be  sought  by  the  way  of  base  concession. 
He  had  been  able  to  free  the  slaves,  partly  because  he 
would  not  hasten  to  this  object  at  the  sacrifice  of  what 
he  thought  a  larger  purpose.  This  most  unrelenting 
enemy  to  the  project  of  the  Confederacy  was  the  one 
man  who  had  quite  purged  his  heart  and  mind  from 


THE  END  455 

hatred  or  even  anger  towards  his  fellow-countrymen  of 
the  South.  That  fact  came  to  be  seen  in  the  South  too, 
and  generations  in  America  are  likely  to  remember  it 
when  all  other  features  of  his  statecraft  have  grown  in- 
distinct. A  thousand  reminiscences  ludicrous  or  pathetic, 
passing  into  myth  but  enshrining  hard  fact,  will  prove  to 
them  that  this  great  feature  of  his  policy  was  a  matter  of 
more  than  policy.  They  will  remember  it  as  adding  a 
peculiar  lustre  to  the  renovation  of  their  national  exist- 
ence; as  no  small  part  of  the  glory,  surpassing  that  of 
former  wars,  which  has  become  the  common  heritage  of 
North  and  South.  For  perhaps  not  many  conquerors,  and 
certainly  few  successful  statesmen,  have  escaped  the  tend- 
ency of  power  to  harden  or  at  least  to  narrow  their  hu- 
man sympathies;  but  in  this  man  a  natural  wealth  of 
tender  compassion  became  richer  and  more  tender  while 
in  the  stress  of  deadly  conflict  he  developed  an  astounding 
strength. 

Beyond  his  own  country  some  of  us  recall  his  name  as 
the  greatest  among  those  associated  with  the  cause  of 
popular  government.  He  would  have  liked  this  tribute, 
and  the  element  of  truth  in  it  is  plain  enough,  yet  it  de- 
mands one  final  consideration.  He  accepted  the  institu- 
tions to  which  he  was  born,  and  he  enjoyed  them.  His 
own  intense  experience  of  the  weakness  of  democracy  did 
not  sour  him,  nor  would  any  similar  experience  of  later 
times  have  been  likely  to  do  so.  Yet  if  he  reflected  much 
on  forms  of  government  it  was  with  a  dominant  interest 
in  something  beyond  them.  For  he  was  a  citizen  of  that 
far  country  where  there  is  neither  aristocrat  nor  demo- 
crat. No  political  theory  stands  out  from  his  words  or 
actions;  but  they  show  a  most  unusual  sense  of  the  possi- 
ble dignity  of  common  men  and  common  things.  His 
humour  rioted  in  comparisons  between  potent  personages 
and  Jim  Jett's  brother  or  old  Judge  Brown's  drunken 
coachman,  for  the  reason  for  which  the  rarely  jesting 
Wordsworth  found  a  hero  in  the  "  Leech-Gatherer  "  or 
in  Nelson  and  a  villain  in  Napoleon  or  in  Peter  Bell.  He 
could  use  and  respect  and  pardon  and  overrule  his  far 


456  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

more  accomplished  ministers  because  he  stood  up  to  them 
with  no  more  fear  or  cringing,  with  no  more  dislike  or 
envy  or  disrespect  than  he  had  felt  when  he  stood  up  long 
before  to  Jack  Armstrong.  He  faced  the  difficulties  and 
terrors  of  his  high  office  with  that  same  mind  with  which 
he  had  paid  his  way  as  a  poor  man  or  navigated  a  boat 
in  rapids  or  in  floods.  If  he  had  a  theory  of  democracy  it 
was  contained  in  this  condensed  note  which  he  wrote,  per- 
haps as  an  autograph,  a  year  or  two  before  his  Presi- 
dency :  "As  I  would  not  be  a  slave,  so  I  would  not  be  a 
master.  This  expresses  my  idea  of  democracy.  What- 
ever differs  from  this,  to  the  extent  of  the  difference,  is  no- 
democracy. — A.  LINCOLN/' 


APPENDIX 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

A  COMPLETE  bibliography  of  books  dealing  specially 
with  Lincoln,  and  of  books  throwing  important  light  upon 
his  life  or  upon  the  history  of  the  American  Civil  War, 
cannot  be  attempted  here.  The  author  aims  only  at  men- 
tioning the  books  which  have  been  of  greatest  use  to  him 
and  a  few  others  to  which  reference  ought  obviously  to 
be  made. 

The  chief  authorities  for  the  life  of  Lincoln  are : — 

"Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,"  by  John  G.  Nicolay 
and  John  Hay  (his  private  secretaries),  in  ten  volumes: 
The  Century  Company,  New  York,  and  T.  Fisher  Unwin, 
London;  "The  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln"  (i.e., 
speeches,  letters,  and  State  papers),  in  eight  volumes:  G. 
Putnam's  Sons,  London  and  New  York;  and,  for  his  early 
life,  "  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  Herndon  and 
Weik :  Appleton,  London  and  New  York. 

There  are  numerous  short  biographies  of  Lincoln,  but 
among  these  it  is  not  invidious  to  mention  as  the  best 
(expressing  as  it  does  the  mature  judgment  of  the  highest 
authority)  "A  Short  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  John 
G.  Nicolay :  The  Century  Company,  New  York. 

The  author  may  be  allowed  to  refer,  moreover,  to  the 
interest  aroused  in  him  as  a  boy  by  "Abraham  Lincoln," 
by  C.  G.  Leland,  in  the  "  New  Plutarch  Series  " :  Marcus 
Ward  &  Co.,  London;  and  to  the  light  he  has  much  later 
derived  from  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  John  T.  Morse, 
Junior:  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  U.S.A. 

Among  studies  of  Lincoln,  containing  a  wealth  of  illus- 
trative stories,  a  very  high  place  is  due  to  "  The  True 
Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  William  Eleroy  Curtis:  The  J.  B. 
Lippincott  Company,  Philadelphia  and  London. 

For  the  history  of  America  at  the  period  concerned  the 
reader  may  be  most  confidently  referred  to  a  work,  which 

457 


458  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

by  plentiful  extracts  and  citations  enables  its  writer's  judg- 
ment to  be  checked,  without  detracting  from  the  interest 
and  power  of  his  narrative,  namely,  "  History  of  the 
United  States,  1850 — 1877,"  by  James  Ford  Rhodes,  in 
seven  volumes:  The  Macmillan  Company,  London  and 
New  York. 

Among  the  shorter  complete  histories  of  the  United 
States  are :  "  The  United  States :  an  Outline  of  Political 
History,"  by  Goldwin  Smith:  The  Macmillan  Company, 
London  and  New  York;  the  article  "United  States  of 
America"  (section  "History")  in  the  "Encyclopaedia 
Britannica "  (see  also  the  many  excellent  articles  on 
American  biography  in  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  ")  ; 
"The  Cambridge  Modern  History:  Vol.  VIL,  United 
States  of  America  " :  Cambridge  University  Press,  and 
The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 

Two  volumes  of  special  interest  in  regard  to  the  early 
days  of  the  United  States,  in  some  ways  complementary 
to  each  other  in  their  different  points  of  view,  are: 
"Alexander  Hamilton,"  by  F.  G.  Oliver :  Constable  &  Co., 
and  "  Historical  Essays,"  by  John  Fitch. 

Almost  every  point  in  regard  to  American  institutions 
and  political  practice  is  fully  treated  in  "  The  American 
Commonwealth,"  by  Viscount  Bryce,  O.M.,  two  volumes: 
The  Macmillan  Company,  London  and  New  York. 

For  the  attitude  of  the  British  Government  during  the 
war  the  conclusive  authority  is  the  correspondence  to  be 
found  in  "  The  Life  of  Lord  John  Russell,"  by  Sir 
Spencer  Walpole,  K.C.B.,  two  volumes:  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co.,  London  and  New  York;  and  light  on  the 
attitude  of  the  English  people  is  thrown  by  "  The  Life  of 
John  Bright,"  by  G.  M.  Trevelyan :  Constable,  London, 
and  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  U.S.A. 

With  respect  to  the  military  history  of  the  .Civil  War 
the  author  is  specially  indebted  to  "  The  Civil  War  in  the 
United  States,"  by  W.  Birkbeck  Wood  and  Major  J.  E. 
Edmonds,  R.E.,  with  an  introduction  by  Spenser  Wilkin- 
son: Methuen  &  Co.,  London,  and  Putnam,  New  York, 
which  is  the  only  concise  and  complete  history  of  the  war 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  459 

written  with  full  knowledge  of  all  recent  works  bearing 
on  the  subject.  Mr.  Nicolay's  chapters  in  the  "  Cambridge 
Modern  History  "  give  a  very  lucid  narrative  of  the  war. 

Among  works  of  special  interest  bearing  on  the  war, 
though  not  much  concerning  the  subject  of  this  book,  it 
is  only  necessary  to  mention  "  '  Stonewall '  Jackson,"  by 
Colonel  Henderson,  C.B.,  two  volumes:  Longmans, 
London  and  New  York;  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the 
Civil  War  "  (a  book  of  monographs  by  several  authors, 
many  of  them  actors  in  the  war),  four  volumes:  T. 
Fisher  Unwin,  London,  and  Century  Company,  New 
York,  and  "Story  of  the  Civil  War,"  by  J.  C.  Ropes: 
Putnam,  London  and  New  York. 

It  may  be  added  that  a  life  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee 
had  been  projected,  as  a  companion  volume  to  this  in  the 
same  series,  by  Brigadier-General  Frederick  Maurice, 
C.B.,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that,  though  suspended  by  the 
present  war,  this  book  may  still  be  written.  Existing  biog- 
raphies of  Lee  are  disappointing.  It  has  been  (especially 
in  view  of  this  intended  book  on  Lee)  outside  the  scope 
of  this  volume  to  present  the  history  of  the  Civil  War 
with  special  reference  to  the  Southern  actors  in  it,  but 
"  Memoirs  of  Jefferson  Davis  "  must  be  here  referred  to 
as  in  some  sense  an  authoritative,  though  not  a  very  at- 
tractive or  interesting,  exposition  of  the  views  of  Southern 
statesmen  at  the  time. 

An  interesting  sidelight  on  the  war  may  be  found  in 
"  Life  with  the  Confederate  Army,"  by  Watson,  being 
the  experiences  of  a  Scotchman  who  for  a  time  served 
under  the  Confederacy. 

In  regard  to  slavery  and  to  Southern  society  before  the 
war  the  author  has  made  much  use  of  "  Our  Slave  States," 
by  Frederick  Law  Olmsted:  Dix  and  Edwards,  New 
York,  1856,  and  other  works  of  the  same  author.  Mr. 
Olmsted  was  a  Northerner,  but  his  very  full  observations 
can  be  checked  by  the  numerous  quotations  on  the  same 
subject  collected  by  Mr.  Rhodes  in  his  history. 

For  the  history  of  the  South  since  the  war  and  the 
present  position  of  the  negroes,  see  the  chapters  on  this 


460  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

subject  in  Bryce's  "American  Commonwealth,"  second  or 
any  later  edition,  two  volumes :  Macmillan,  London  and 
New  York. 

Mr.  Owen  Wister's  novel,  "  Lady  Baltimore  " :  Mac- 
millan, London  and  New  York,  embraces  a  most  interest- 
ing study  of  the  survivals  of  the  old  Southern  society  at  the 
present  time  and  of  the  present  relations  between  it  and 
the  North. 

The  treatment  of  the  negroes  freed  during  the  war  is 
the  main  subject  of  "  Grant,  Lincoln  and  the  Freedmen," 
by  John  Eaton  and  E.  O.  Mason :  Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.,  London  and  New  York,  a  book  to  which  the  author 
is  also  indebted  for  other  interesting  matter. 

The  personal  memoirs,  and  especially  the  autobiog- 
raphies dealing  with  the  Civil  War,  are  very  numerous, 
and  the  author  therefore  would  only  wish  to  mention 
those  which  seem  to  him  of  altogether  unusual  interest. 
"  Personal  Memoirs  of  General  U.  S.  Grant  " :  Century 
Company,  New  York,  is  a  book  of  very  high  order  (Sher- 
man's memoirs:  Appleton,  New  York,  and  his  corre- 
spondence with  his  brother:  Scribner,  New  York,  have 
also  been  quoted  in  these  pages). 

Great  interest  both  in  regard  to  Lincoln  personally  and 
to  the  history  of  the  United  States  after  his  death  at- 
taches to  "  Reminiscences,"  by  Carl  Schurz,  three  volumes 
(Vol.  I.  being  concerned  with  Germany  in  1848)  :  John 
Murray,  London,  and  Doubleday  Page,  New  York,  and 
to  "  The  Life  of  John  Hay,"  by  W.  R.  Thayer,  two  vol- 
umes: Constable  &  Co.,  London,  and  Houghton  Mifflin 
Company,  Boston,  U.S.A. 

The  author  has  derived  much  light  from  "  Specimen 
Days,  and  Collect,"  by  Walt  Whitman:  Wilson  and  Mc- 
Cormick,  Glasgow,  and  McKay,  U.S.A. 

He  may  be  allowed,  in  conclusion,  to  mention  the  en- 
couragement given  to  him  in  beginning  his  work  by  the 
late  Mr.  Henry  James,  O.M.,  whose  vivid  and  enthusi- 
astic judgment  of  Lincoln  he  had  the  privilege  of  re- 
ceiving. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 


Some  events  in  History  of  United 
States. 

1759.    Capture  of  Quebec. 


1765.    Stamp  Act  passed. 
1776.    Declaration     of     Independ- 
ence. 


1783.     American  Independence  rec- 
ognised. 

1787.     Constitution  framed. 

North  West  Territory  ceded 
by  States  to  Congress  and 
slavery  excluded  from  it 

1789.     Constitution  comes  into  force. 

1793.    Eli  Whitney  invents  cotton 
gin. 


1799.    Death  of  Washington. 


1803. 
1804. 


1807. 
1808. 


Some  events  in  English  and  Gen- 
eral History. 

1759.  Capture  of  Quebec. 

1757 — 60.    Ministry     of     Chatham 
(William  Pitt). 

1760.  Contrat  Social  published. 
1764 — 76.     Great  inventions  in  spin- 
ning industries. 

1765.    Watt's  steam  engine. 

1776.    Publication  of  "Wealth  of 

Nations." 

1778.    Death  of  Chatham. 
1782.    Rodney's  victory. 


Louisiana  purchase. 
Death  of  Hamilton. 


Fulton's  steam-boat  on  Hud- 
son. 

Slave    Trade    abolished    by      1808. 
U.  S.  A. 


1809.     Abraham  Lincoln  born. 

1812—1814.    War  with  Great  Brit- 
ain. 

1820.    Missouri  Compromise. 
1823.     Monroe  doctrine   declared. 


1789.    Meeting  of  States  General. 

1793.  England  at  war  with  French 

Republic. 

1794.  Slave    Trade    abolished    by 

French  Convention. 

1802.  Peace  of  Amiens. 

1803.  England   at   war  with  Na- 

poleon. 

1805.  Trafalgar. 

1806.  The      American      Fulton's 

steam-boat  on   Seine. 

Slave  Trade  abolished  by 
Great  Britain. 

Battle  of  Vimiera.  Con- 
vention of  Cintra. 

Wordsworth's  literary  activ- 
ity about  at  its  culmina- 
tion. 

1809.     Darwin,      Tennyson,      and 
Gladstone  born. 


1807. 


1815.    Waterloo. 


1825. 


First     railway 
England. 


opened     in 


461 


462 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Some  events  in  History  of  United 
States. 

1826.    Death  of  Jefferson. 


1828.     Commencement  of  "nullifi- 
cation "  movement. 
Election  of  Jackson. 

1830.  Hayne- Webster  debate. 

1831.  Garrison      publishes      first 

number  of  Liberator. 
Lincoln  starts   life  in  New 

Salem. 
First     railway     opened     in 

America. 


1834.    Lincoln    elected    to   Illinois 

legislature. 
1837.    End     of    Jackson's     second 

presidency. 


1841.  First  telegraph  in  America. 

1842.  Lincoln  leaves  Illinois  leg- 

islature,   and     (Nov.)     is 
married. 

1845.  Annexation  of  Texas. 

1846.  Boundary    of    Oregon    and 

British    Columbia    settled 
with  Great  Britain. 
1846-7.    Mexican  War. 
1847-8.    Lincoln  in  Congress. 
1848.     Gold     discovery     in     Cali- 
fornia. 
1850.     Clay's  compromise  adopted. 

Death  of  Calham. 
1852.     Deaths   of  Clay   and  Web- 
ster. 

1854.     Missouri     Compromise     re- 
pealed. 
Republican  Party  formed. 


Some  events  in  English  and  Gen- 
eral History. 

1826.  Independence  of  Mexico  and 

Spanish  Colonies  in  South 
America  recognised  by 
Canning. 

1827.  Navarino. 


1829.    Catholic  emancipation. 

1831.    Mazzini       founds      Young 
Italy. 


1832.  First  Reform  Bill. 

1833.  Slavery    abolished   in   Brit- 

ish Colonies. 

1836 — 40.    Great  Boer  Trek. 

1837.  Queen  Victoria's  accession. 
First  steam-boat  from  Eng- 
land to  America. 

1838.  First  telegraph  line  in  Eng- 

land. 

1839.  Lord    Durham's    report    on 

Canada. 


1844. 


Martin  Chuzzlewit ' 
lished. 


pub- 


1846.  Boundary  of  Oregon  and 
British  Columbia  settled 
with  U.  S.  A. 

1846-7.     Irish    famine. 

1848.  Revolution  in  France  and 
in  many  parts  of  Europe. 

1850.  Constitution  Act  for  Aus- 
tralian colonies. 

1852.  Constitution  Act  for  New 
Zealand. 

1854-5.     Gold  rush  to  Australia. 

Crimean  War. 

1854-6.  Abolition  of  slavery  in 
various  Portuguese  Do- 
minions. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 


463 


Some  events  in  History  of  United 
States. 

1856.  Defeat  of  Fremont  by  Bu- 

chanan. 

1857.  Dred  Scott  case. 

1858.  Kansas.  Lincoln-Douglas  de- 

bate. 

1859.  John  Brown's  raid. 


1860.  Nov.   Lincoln  elected  Presi- 

dent. 

Dec.  Secession  carried  in 
South  Carolina. 

1861.  Feb.    4.      Southern    Confed- 

eracy formed. 

Mar.  4.  Lincoln  inaugu- 
rated. 

Ap.  12 — 14.  Bombardment 
of  Fort  Sumter. 

Ap.  War  begins.  Further 
secessions. 

July.  First  Battle  of  Bull 
Run. 

Dec.  Claim  of  Great  Brit- 
ain as  to  Trent  ac- 
cepted. 

1862.  Ap. — Aug.      McClellan     in 

Peninsula. 

Ap.     Shiloh. 

May.  Jackson  in  Shenan- 
doah  Valley. 

Aug. — Oct.  Confederates  in 
Kentucky. 

Aug.  Second  Battle  of  Bull 
Run. 

Sept.  Antietam.  Proclama- 
tion of  emancipation. 

Nov.    McClellan  removed. 

Dec.  Fredericksburg.  Mur- 
freesborough. 

1863.  Mar.  i.     Conscription  Act. 
May.     Chancellorsville. 

Jackson  killed. 
July.       Gettysburg,     Vicks- 

burg.     New  York  riots. 
Sept.     Chickamauga. 
Nov.      Gettysburg      speech. 

Chattanooga. 

1864.  May.    Beginning  of  Grant's 

and  Sherman's  great  cam- 
paigns. 


Some  events  in  English  and  Gen- 
eral History. 


1857-8.    Indian  Mutiny. 


1859.  Publication   of   "  Origin   of 

Species." 
1 8  5  9-60.     Kingdom  of  Italy  formed. 

1860.  Slavery  abolished  in  Dutch 

East  Indies. 


1861.    Emancipation     of     Russian 
serfs. 


1862.    Alabama  escapes  from  the 
Mersey   (July). 


1863.    Revolution  in  Poland. 

Maximilian  proclaimed  Em- 
peror of  Mexico. 


1864.     Prussia  and  Austria  invade 
Denmark. 


464 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Some  events  in  History  of  United 
States. 

1864.  June.    Cold  Harbour.    Bal- 

timore Convention. 

July.  Early's  raid  reaches 
Washington. 

Aug.  Mobile.  Chicago  Con- 
vention. 

Sept.  Sherman  at  Atlanta. 
Sheridan  in  Shenandoah 
Valley. 

Nov.  Lincoln  re-elected  Pres- 
ident. 

Dec.  Nashville.  Sherman 
at  Savannah. 

1865.  Jan.     Congress  passes  i3th 

Amendment. 

Feb.  Further  progress  of 
Sherman  and  Sheridan. 

Mar.  4.  Second  inaugura- 
tion of  Lincoln. 

Ap.  2 — 9.  Richmond  falls, 
and  Lee  surrenders. 

Ap.  14 — 15.  Lincoln  assas- 
sinated and  dies. 

Dec.  13.  Amendment  rati- 
fied. 

1866.  Atlantic    cable    successfully 

laid. 


Some  events  in  English  and  Gen- 
eral History. 


1868.  Rise  of  acute  disorder  in 
"  reconstructed  "  South. 

1870.  Amendment  securing  negro 
suffrage. 

1872.  Alabama  arbitration  with 
Great  Britain. 


1876.  Admitted  failure  of  Recon- 

struction.       Election      of 
Hayes. 

1877.  Federal    troops    withdrawn 

from  South. 


1866.  Atlantic    cable    successfully 

laid. 

War   between   Austria    and 
Prussia. 

1867.  British  North  America  Act. 
Slave  children  emancipated 

in  Brazil. 

Fall  and  execution  of  Max- 
imilian in  Mexico. 

1868.  Mikado     resumes     govern- 

ment in  Japan. 

1870.     Papal  infallibility.     Franco- 
German  War. 

1872.    Alabama     arbitration    with 

U.  S.  A. 

Responsible   Government  in 
Cape  Colony. 


1878.  Slavery  abolished  in  Cuba 
(last  of  Spanish  Colo- 
nies). 


INDEX 

ABOLITION  and  Abolitionists:  Early  movement  dies  down,  36-9;  rise  of 
later  movement,  50-2;  persecuted,  51,  76;  Lincoln's  attitude,  76, 
101,  116,  126-7,  151;  their  position  in  view  of  civil  war,  172.  See 
Slavery  and  Garrison. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis:  236,  262,  264,  328. 

Adams,  John:  37,  236. 

Adams,  John  Quincy:  47,  51,  115,  314,  388. 

Aesop:  10. 

Alabama,  the:  224,  251,  264. 

Alabama  State:  175,  199,  212,  361,  388. 

Alamo,  the:  91. 

Alexander  II.  of  Russia:  256. 

Alleghany  (or  Appalachian)  Mountains:  26,  225,  244;  distinct  character 
of  people  in  them,  56,  198. 

Alley:  429. 

Alton:  76. 

Amendment  of  Constitution:  how  carried,  24;  suggested  amendment  to 
conciliate  South,  192;  Thirteenth  Amendment  prohibiting  slavery, 
335~7i  43*.  4335  Fifteenth  Amendment  requiring  negro  suffrage, 
334-5- 

America,  United  States  of,  and  American:  Diverse  character  of  Colonies, 
resemblances  to  and  differences  from  England,  16-20;  first  attempt 
at  Union,  20;  independence  and  making  of  Constitution,  21-3;  fea- 
tures of  Constitution,  23-5 ;  expansion,  26-8 ;  Union  Government 
brought  into  effect,  28-30,  41 ;  rise  of  national  tradition,  30-5 ;  com- 
promise on  main  cause  of  disunion,  slavery,  35-40;  parties  and 
tendencies  in  the  first  half  of  nineteenth  century,  40-52;  triumph  of 
Union  sentiment,  45-6;  growth  of  separate  interest  and  sentiment 
in  South,  43-5,  52-9;  intellectual  development  and  foundations  of 
American  patriotism,  59-61 ;  further  compromise  on  slavery,  96- 
101 ;  political  cleavage  of  North  and  South  becomes  definite,  109- 
12;  "a  house  divided  against  itself,"  143-7;  f°r  further  develop- 
ments, see  North  and  South;  see  also  Lincoln;  Lincoln's  position  as 
to  enforcement  of  union,  143-4;  common  heritage  of  America  from 
Civil  War,  455. 

American  Party,  or  Know-Nothings :  112,  117-8. 

American  Policy  (so-called) :  42-8. 

Anderson,  Major:  189-90,  208,  212-3,  449. 

Appalachians.    See  Alleghany  Mountains. 

Appomattox  River  and  Court  House:  447. 

Arbitration:  263-4. 

465 


466  INDEX 

Argyll,  Duke  of:  176,  260. 

Arizona:  96. 

Arkansas  River:  28,  351. 

Arkansas  State:  199,  229,  244,  351. 

Armstrong,  Jack  and  Hannah:  64,  108. 

Army:  comparison  of  Northern  and  Southern  men,  216;  and  their  officers, 
216-7,  220,  223-4,  3S°»  system  of  recruiting,  221-3,  363-74;  dis- 
cipline, 220,  248,  282,  420-1 ;  size  of  regular  army,  228.  See  also 
Conscription,  Voluntary  Service  and  Militia. 

Articles  of  Confederation  and  Perpetual  Union:  20,  175. 

Atlanta:  226-7,  394*5,  39$,  424- 

Augusta:  435. 

BAKER:  90. 

Baltimore:  205,  239-42,  453;  Conventions  there,  159-60,  410-1. 

Banks,  N.  P.,  General:  296,  354-5,  389. 

Bates,  Attorney-General:  166,  201-2,  264,  320,  405. 

Battles  (sieges,  campaigns,  etc.,  separately  entered) :  Antietam,  306-7,  313, 
324-5,  450;  Bentonville,  437;  Bull  Run,  first  battle,  245-9;  Bull 
Run,  second  battle,  305,  313;  Cedar  Creek,  396;  Champion's  Hill, 
355;  Chancellorsville,  311-13;  Chattanooga,  360;  Chickamauga, 
360;  Cold  Harbour,  393,  410;  Five  Forks,  446;  Fort  Donelson,  281; 
Four  Oaks,  295;  Franklin,  396;  Fredericksburg,  309,  313;  Gettys- 
burg, 357,  450;  Kenesaw  Mountain,  394;  Manassas  (two  battles), 
see  Bull  Run;  Mill  Springs,  280;  Mobile,  395;  Murfreesborough, 
343,  45°j  Nashville,  396;  New  Orleans,  283;  Perryville,  342; 
Sailor's  Creek,  447;  Seven  Days'  Battles,  298;  Seven  Pines,  see 
Four  Oaks;  Shi  lob,  282-3;  Spottsylvania,  392;  Wilderness,  392. 

Bazaine,  Marshal:  388. 

Bell,  John:  159. 

Bentham,  Jeremy:  32. 

Berry:  66-7. 

Bible:  10,  132,  439-40. 

Bismarck:  424. 

Black:  185. 

Black  Hawk:  65. 

Blackstone's  Commentaries:  67. 

Blair,  Francis,  senr.:  432-3. 

Blair,  Montgomery:  202,  208,  245,  405,  410. 

Blockade:  224,  226,  251-2,  436. 

Booth,  John  Wilkes:  451. 

Border  States:  171,  228-9,  243-5,  27°»  3l8*9»  333'4« 

Boston:  47,  51,  59-60,  I72-3- 

Boswell,  James:  102. 

Bragg,  General:  340-3,  352,  359-60,  387-8. 

Breckinridge,  John  C:  159. 


INDEX  467 

Bright,  John:  127,  236,  260. 

British  Columbia:  28,  no. 

Brooks,  Phillips:  60. 

Brooks,  Preston:  138-9. 

Brown,  John:  126,  150-5,  197,  397. 

Brown,  Judge:  85. 

Buchanan,  James:  113,  138,  140,  141,  177,  184-90,  206,  208,  231. 

Buell,  Don  Carlos,  General:  274,  276-82,  339-44,  369. 

Bummers:  397. 

Burlingame:  139. 

Burns,  Robert:  103,  105. 

Burnside,  Ambrose,  General:  307,  309,  359-60,  382,  393,  455. 

Burr,  Aaron:  29. 

Butler,  Benjamin,  General:  268,  283,  392-3,  409,  436,  444. 

Butterfield:  95. 

CALHOUN,  John:  68. 

Calhoun,  John  Cald well :  his  character  and  influence,  42-5 :  his  doctrine  of 
"nullification"  and  secession,  45-6;  his  death,  100;  further  ref- 
erences, 97,  113,  175,  182. 

California:  28,  91-3,  96-9. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts:  59. 

Cameron,  Simon:  166-7,  201-3,  242,  271. 

Campbell,  Justice:  210,  446. 

Canada:  176,  211,  383. 

Carolina.    See  North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina. 

Cass,  General:  65,  94,  96,  172,  186. 

Castlereagh:  377. 

Cecil,  Lord  R.    See  Salisbury. 

Central  America:  145. 

Channing,  Rev.  William  Eleroy:  51. 

Charles  I.:  433. 

Charleston:  43,  251-3,  387,  435.    And  see  Fort  Sumter. 

Chase,  Salmon  P. :  rising  opponent  of  slavery,  101 ;  approves  of  Lincoln's 
opposition  to  Douglas,  141;  claims  to  the  Presidency,  161,  166; 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  201-2 ;  his  successful  administration  of 
finance,  254;  regarded  as  Radical  leader,  intrigues  against  Lincoln 
and  causes  difficulty  in  Cabinet,  328-9 ;  continues  troublesome,  de- 
sires Presidency,  resigns,  406-8;  appointed  Chief  Justice,  429-30; 
other  references,  208,  311,  415. 

Chatham,  20,  234. 

Chattanooga:  226-7,  339-40,  342-3,  359-60,  387-8,  394. 

Chicago:  Republican  Convention  there,  166-9;  deputation  of  clergy,  323; 
Democratic  Convention,  411-4. 

Choate,  Joseph  H.:  106,  156. 


468  INDEX 

Civil  Service:  50. 

Civil  War.    See  War. 

Clary's  Grove:  64,  66. 

Clay,  Henry:  41;  his  character  and  career,  42,  48;  compromise  of  1850 
originated  by  him,  99;  his  death,  100;  Lincoln  on  him,  101,  122. 

Cobb:  185. 

Cobden,  Richard:  257-8. 

Cock-fighting:  63,  69. 

Collamer,  Senator:  167. 

Colonies.     See  America. 

Colonisation.    See  Negroes. 

Columbia,  South  Carolina:  455. 

Columbia,  District  of:  94,  319. 

Columbia  River:  28. 

Columbus,  Georgia:  226-7. 

Compulsory  Service.    See  Conscription. 

Confederacy,  Confederates:  see  also  South;  Confederacy  of  six  States 
formed  and  Constitution  adopted  at  Montgomery  and  claims  of 
these  States  to  Federal  Government's  forts,  etc.,  or  their  soil  taken 
over,  199-201 ;  commencement  of  war  by  Confederacy,  212-3 ;  area 
of  its  country  and  difficulty  of  conquest,  214-6;  character  of  popu- 
lation, 216;  spirit  of  independence  animating  Confederacy,  218-9; 
other  conditions  telling  against  or  for  its  success  in  the  war,  214- 
27;  original  Confederate  States,  viz.,  South  Carolina,  Georgia, 
Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Florida,  joined  subsequently  by 
Texas,  and  on  outbreak  of  war  by  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Ten- 
nessee, and  Arkansas,  228-9;  capital  moved  to  Richmond,  242;  for 
course  of  war,  see  War;  for  political  course  of  Confederacy,  see 
].  Davis  and  Congress  of  Confederacy;  attitude  of  foreign  Gov- 
ernments to  Confederacy,  256,  261,  302,  313;  refusal  of  Lincoln  to 
treat  with  Confederacy  as  an  independent  state,  403,  432-3 ;  refusal 
of  Davis  to  negotiate  on  other  terms,  428,  432-3 ;  ultimate  sur- 
render of  Confederate  forces  and  dispersion  of  its  Government, 
445-8. 

Congregationalists:  17,  19. 

Congress  of  original  American  Confederation:  20,  38. 

Congress  of  U.S.A.  under  the  Constitution:  distinguished  from  Parlia- 
ment by  the  severance  between  it  and  the  executive  government, 
by  the  limitation  of  its  functions  to  strictly  Federal  matters,  and 
by  its  subjection  to  provisions  of  Constitution,  23-4,  see  also  371, 
377-9,  402,  429;  for  certain  Acts  of  Congress,  see  Slavery;  attempts 
at  pacification  during  progress  of  Secession,  192-3 ;  action  of  and 
discussions  in  Congress  during  Civil  War,  246,  253,  263,  265-6,  269, 
271,  276,  288,  316-9,  321-3,  324-7,  333-6,  351,  369-70,  379,  380,  382, 
388,  389,  400-1,  434. 

Congress  of  Confederacy:  200,  366-7,  431. 

Conscription:  in  South:  366-7;  in  North,  364-5,  369-70;  superior  on  grounds 
of  moral  principle  to  voluntary  system,  366. 


INDEX  469 

Conservative,  the:  119. 
Conservatives:  245,  267-8,  328. 
Constitution,  British:  20,  23,  377. 

Constitution  of  United  States:  22-5,  41.  See  also  Amendment  of  Consti- 
tution. 

Contraband:  268,  409. 
Cooper  Institute:  144,  155. 
Copperheads:  382. 
Corinth:  283,  338-9. 
Cotton:  39,  259-60,  313. 
Cow  Island:  331. 
Cowper,  William:  n. 
Crittenden:  192-5. 
Cuba:  145,  159. 

Cumberland  River:  226,  277,  280-1. 
Curtis,  B.  R.,  Justice:  114. 

DARWIN,  Charles:  138,  259. 

Davis,  David,  Justice:  167,  379. 

Davis,  Henry  Winter:  388,  401. 

Davis,  Jefferson:  his  rise  as  an  extreme  Southern  leader,  101,  138,  150; 
inclined  to  favour  slave  trade,  145;  his  argument  for  right  of  Se- 
cession, 176;  his  part  in  Secession,  198-200;  President  of  Confed- 
eracy, 200;  vetoes  Bill  against  slave  trade  as  inadequate  and 
fraudulent,  200;  orders  attack  on  Fort  Sumter,  212;  criticisms  upon 
his  military  policy,  217-8,  387-8;  his  part  in  the  war,  246,  355, 
387-8,  395,  431,  433,  446;  his  determination  to  hold  out  and  his  atti- 
tude to  peace,  403-4,  431-4;  as  to  prisoners  of  war,  330,  399;  escape 
from  Richmond  and  last  public  action,  446;  his  capture,  and  his 
emotions  on  Lincoln's  assassination,  452-3 ;  his  memoirs,  453,  460. 

Dayton,  Senator:  167. 

Declaration  of  Independence:  meaning  of  its  principles,  32-5;  how  slave- 
holders signed  it,  35-9;  Lincoln's  interpretation  of  it,  123;  his  great 
speech  upon  it,  184. 

Delaware:  17,  198,  318,  334. 

Democracy:  fundamental  ideas  in  it,  32-9,  123;  development  of  extreme 
form  and  of  certain  abuses  of  it  in  America,  47-50;  its  institutions 
and  practices  still  in  an  early  stage  of  development,  50;  a  foolish 
perversion  of  it  in  the  Northern  States,  59,  218;  Lincoln  sees  a 
decay  of  worthy  and  honest  democratic  feeling,  117;  the  Civil 
War  regarded  by  Lincoln  and  many  in  North  as  a  test  whether 
democratic  government  could  maintain  itself,  183-4,  362-3,  425;  the 
sense  in  which  Lincoln  was  a  great  democrat,  455-6. 

Democratic  Party:  traces  descent  from  Jefferson,  30;  originated  or  started 
anew  by  Jackson,  its  principles,  47-8 ;  general  subservience  of  its 
leaders  to  Southern  interests,  91,  no,  140,  see  also  Mexico,  Pierce, 
Douglas,  Buchanan;  breach  between  Northern  and  Southern  Demo- 


470  INDEX 

crats,  141,  148-50,  157-9;  Northern  Democrats  loyal  to  Union, 
172-4,  177,  188,  231;  progress  of  Democratic  opposition  to  Lincoln, 
267,  316,  374-5,  381-5,  401,  411-5;  Lincoln's  appeal  after  defeating 
them,  425. 

Dickens,  Charles:  31,  32,  41,  259. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin:  74,  260. 

Dough-Faces:  40. 

Douglas,  Stephen:  rival  to  Lincoln  in  Illinois  Legislature,  71;  possibly 
also  in  love,  81,  87;  his  rise,  influence,  and  character,  101,  no-i; 
repeals  Missouri  Compromise,  HO-I;  supports  rights  of  Kansas, 
115,  140;  Lincoln's  contest  with  him,  121-2,  132-7,  140-9;  gist  of 
Lincoln's  objection  to  his  principles,  130,  142-5;  unsuccessful  can- 
didate for  Presidency,  159,  168-9;  attitude  to  Secession,  188;  rela- 
tions with  Lincoln  after  Secession,  206,  210,  231;  death,  231. 

Douglass,  Frederick:  332. 

Drink:  63,  76-7,  353,  423. 

Dundreary:  451. 

EARLY,  General:  394,  395,  438. 

Eaton,  John:  330-2,  347,  416,  461. 

Edmonds.    See  Wood  and  Edmonds. 

Edwards,  Mrs.  Ninian:  81. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo:  60,  152,  426. 

Episcopalians:  85,  351,  440. 

Equality.    See  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Euclid:  104,  132. 

Everett,  Edward:  159,  362. 

FARRAGUT,  David,  Admiral:  231,  283,  349,  388,  395,  412,  434,  435. 

Federalism:  22. 

Federalist  Party:  30,  173. 

Filibustering:  (i)  in  sense  of  piracy:  194. 

(2)  in  sense  of  obstruction:  333. 

Fillmore,  Millard:  99,  112,  114,  133. 

Finance:  67-8,  254. 

Florida:  16,  26,  199,  251,  453. 

Fort  Donelson:  280-1. 

Fort  Fisher:  436. 

Fort  Henry:  281. 

Fort  Monroe:  268,  292. 

Fort  Sumter:  187-90,  201,  208,  210,  212-3,  228,  449. 

Fox,  Gustavus  V.:  202,  252-3,  264. 

France:  influence  of  French  Revolution,  31;  Louisiana  territory  acquired 
from  France,  26;  French  settlers,  27;  slavery  in  Louisiana  State, 
39-40;  relations  with  America  during  Civil  War,  211,  256,  262, 
313,  388,  404,  420. 


INDEX  471 

Frankfort,  Kentucky:  340. 

Franklin,  Benjamin:  37. 

Franklin,  Tennessee:  396-7. 

Free-Soil  Party:  in. 

Free  Trade:  45,  258. 

Fremont,  John:  112,  133,  269-70,  274,  277,  296-7,  316,  409-10. 

Fry,  J.  B.,  General:  370. 

GARRISON,  William  Lloyd:  50-2,  336. 

Gentryville:  4,  6,  7. 

Gettysburg,  Lincoln's  speech  at:  363. 

Georgia:  36,  56,  199,  226,  396-7. 

George  II.:  353. 

Gibbon,  Edward:  67. 

Gilmer:  194. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.:  258. 

Goldsborough :  437,  444. 

Governors  of  States:  20,  161,  222,  299,  343-5,  362. 

Graham,  Mentor:  63,  64,  68. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  General:  previous  disappointing  career  and  return  to 
Army,  earlier  success  in  Civil  War,  280;  captures  Fort  Henry  and 
Fort  Donelson,  surprised  but  successful  at  Shiloh,  280-4;  negro 
refugees  with  his  army,  330;  kept  idle  as  Halleck's  second  in  com- 
mand, and  on  his  departure  left  on  defensive  near  Corinth,  339, 
342 ;  his  reputation  now  and  his  real  greatness  of  character,  345-8 ; 
Vicksburg  campaigns,  348-55 ;  Lincoln's  relations  with  him  from 
the  first,  352-3;  Chattanooga  campaign,  359-60;  appointed  Lieu- 
tenant General,  meeting  with  Lincoln,  parting  from  Sherman, 
389-90;  plans  for  final  stages  of  war,  390;  unsuccessful  attempts 
to  crush  Lee  in  the  open  field  and  movement  to  City  Point  for 
siege  of  Petersburg  and  Richmond  in  which  first  operations  fail, 
391-2;  sends  Sheridan  to  Shenandoah  Valley,  393-4;  unnecessary 
anxiety  as  to  Thomas,  397;  siege  of  Petersburg  and  Richmond 
continued,  398;  attempts  to  get  him  to  run  for  Presidency,  410-11; 
his  loyalty  to  Lincoln,  416-7;  his  wish  to  promote  peace,  433;  fur- 
ther progress  of  siege,  436,  437-8 ;  Lincoln's  visit  to  him  at  City 
Point,  443-5 ;  forbidden  to  treat  with  Lee  on  political  questions, 
445;  fall  of  Richmond,  445-6;  Lee  forced  to  surrender,  446-8;  last 
interview  with  Lincoln,  449-50;  Memoirs,  459. 

Granville,  Earl:  260. 

Gray,  Asa:  138. 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland:  early  relations  with  U.S.A.,  16-20;  relative 
progress  of  the  two  countries  at  different  periods,  32,  33,  38;  Eng- 
lish views  of  American  Revolution,  21,  see  Constitution  of  Great 
Britain  and  U.S.A.;  war  in  1812-14  with  U.S.A.,  42,  46,  273;  com- 
parisons of  English  and  American  Government,  49,  50;  relations 
of  the  two  countries  in  the  Civil  War,  211,  256-65,  313;  voluntary 


472  INDEX 

system  of  recruiting  in  the  two  countries  and  its  result  in  each, 

364-6,  370;  Lincoln's  fame  in  England,  454. 
Greeley,  Horace:  137,  143.  245,  322-3,  404. 
Greene,  Bowline:  79. 
Greensborough :  437,  452. 
Grigsby,  Reuben,  and  family:  6,  n,  12. 
Grimes,  Senator:  194. 

HALLECK,  Henry  W.,  General:  274,  277-84,  297-8,  301-2,  306,  309,  338-43, 

349.  356,  395- 
Hamilton,  Alexander:  his  greatness,  29;  his  origin  and  career,  he  brings 

the  Union  Government  into  successful  operation,  his  beautiful  and 

heroic  character,  29-30;  original  source  of  Monroe  doctrine,  385; 

other   references,   34,   37;   his   view   on   construction   of   Statutes, 

377-8. 

Hampton  Roads:  433. 
Hanks,  Dennis:  4,  6,  420. 
Hanks,  John:  4,  6,  14,  166. 
Hanks,  Joseph:  4. 
Harcourt,  Lady:  417. 
Hardin:  90. 

Harper's  Ferry:  151,  239. 
Harrison,  William  Henry:  72. 
Harrison's  Landing:  298-302. 
Harvard:  59,  330,  444. 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel:  101. 
Hay,  John:  235,  419,  458,  461. 
Hayne,  Senator:  45. 
Henderson,  Colonel:  221. 

Herndon,  William:  66,  79,  87,  94,  102-3,  1O5»  "9,  126,  142  147,  165. 
Hood,  John  B.,  General:  394,  396-7. 
Hooker,  Joseph,  General:  309-11,  355-6,  360,  362. 
House  of  Commons.    See  Parliament. 
House  of  Lords:  33. 

House  of  Representatives.    See  Congress  of  U.S.A. 
Houston,  Governor:  199. 
Hugo,  Victor:  152. 
Hunter,  General:  321,  395. 
Hymns:  n,  440. 

ILLINOIS,  27,  38,  Chapters  I.,  III.,  IV.,  i  and  3,  and  V.,  i,  3,  and  5;  344, 

350- 
Inaugural   Address:  Lincoln's  first,  206-7;    his  second,  441-3;   Jefferson 

Davis',  200- 1. 


INDEX  473 

Inaugural  Ceremony:  Lincoln's  first,  206;  Lincoln's  second,  438. 

Independence.    See  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Independents.     See  Congregationalists. 

Indiana:  4,  9,  27,  38,  345. 

Indians,  North  American:  3,  65. 

Iowa:  27,  194. 

Ironclads:  252. 

JACKSON,  Andrew:  his  opinion  of  Calhoun,  43;  frustrates  movement  for 
nullification,  46;  his  character,  46;  revives  party  and  promotes 
growth  of  party  machinery,  and  adopts  "  spoils  system,"  46-49 ; 
other  references,  66,  173,  209,  409. 

Jackson,  Thomas  J.,  called  "Stonewall,"  General:  his  acknowledged 
genius,  217,  220;  goes  with  State  of  Virginia,  229;  his  character, 
230;  Shenandoah  Valley  campaign  and  movement  to  outflank  Mc- 
Clellan,  295-8 ;  Antietam  campaign,  305 ;  killed  during  victory  of 
Chancellorsville,  311;  Lee's  estimate  of  his  loss,  357. 

James,  Henry:  461. 

James  River:  292,  298,  392-3,  438,  447. 

Jefferson,  Thomas:  curious  and  displeasing  character,  30;  great  and  last- 
ing influence  on  American  life,  30-2;  practical  achievements  in 
statesmanship,  32 ;  real  sense  and  value  of  his  doctrine,  32-5 ; 
opinion  and  action  as  to  slavery,  37-8;  other  references,  28,  46, 
56,  *79- 

Jiggers:  331. 

Johnson,  Andrew:  400,  411,  451,  453. 

Johnson,  Samuel:  33,  35. 

Johnston,  Albert  Sidney,  General:  276-7,  281-2. 

Johnston,  John:  4,  6,  14. 

Johnston,  Joseph,  General:  218,  247-8,  287-8,  295,  354-5,  378,  387,  390, 
394,  43<5-7,  452- 

KANSAS:  110-2,  115,  117,  126,  128,  139-40,  162-3. 

Kentucky:  2-5,  9,  26,  81,  192,  197,  225,  229,  270,  334,  339'43- 

Kipling,  Rudyard:  88. 

Kirkham's  Grammar:  63. 

"  Know-Nothings."    See  American  Party. 

Knoxville:  226,  275,  359. 

LAW,  Lincoln's  law  study  and  practice,  10,  67,  68,  106-8,  271-2,  423. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  General:  his  acknowledged  genius,  217,  220;  goes  with 
State  of  Virginia,  229,  239,  376;  his  character,  230;  cautious  mili- 
tary advice  at  first,  246;  opinion  of  McClellan,  285;  operations 
against  McClellan,  Pope,  Burnside,  and  Hooker,  297,  311;  inva- 
sion of  Pennsylvania  and  retreat,  355-8,  386-7;  resistance  to  Grant, 
see  Grant,  391-2,  398;  appointed  General  in  Chief,  431;  abstains 
always  from  political  action,  431-2;  final  effort,  surrender  and 
later  life,  445-6. 


474  INDEX 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  President:  his  career  and  policy  up  to  his  Presidency, 
see  in  Table  of  Contents;  his  military  administration  and  policy, 
273-9,  3O2»  3°8»  345,  and  see  McClellan;  his  administration  gen- 
erally, 250-5;  his  foreign  policy,  261-5;  his  policy  generally,  265-72, 
and  see  Slavery,  Negotiations  for  Peace,  Reconstruction;  devel- 
opment of  his  abilities  and  character,  7-15,  62,  73-7,  87-8,  103-6, 
134-6,  I53-S.  J63-6,  233-9,  337,  4I8-24,  439-41  J  his  fame  to-day, 
454-6. 

Lodge,  Senator:  261. 

Logan,  General:  350,  397. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth:  53,  60,  61,  137,  152. 

Longstreet,  General:  357,  359-60,  387. 

Louisiana  Purchase:  26,  32,  39-40. 

Louisiana  State:  26,  39-40,  199,  283,  334,  400,  448-9. 

Louisville:  116,  339-41. 

Lovejoy:  76. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  and  references  to  his  writings:  19,  92,  138,  172, 
209,  237,  261,  264. 

Lundy:  50. 

Lynchburg:  438. 

Lyon,  Nathaniel:  244-5,  2^9- 

Lyons,  Lord:  236,  237,  264. 

MCDOWELL,  General:  247-8,  290,  293-7. 

Machine,  in  politics:  48-9,  167-8. 

McClellan,  George  B.,  General:  practical  help  to  Douglas,  134;  successes 
in  West  Virginia,  243 ;  put  in  command  of  Army  of  Potomac  and 
later  of  all  armies,  272;  his  strategic  views  at  outset  of  war,  274-5, 
276,  280;  his  career  and  character,  284-6;  Lincoln's  problem  about 
him,  286-7 ;  procrastination  and  friction  before  he  moved,  287-91 ; 
preliminaries  to  campaign  in  Peninsula,  291-3;  relieved  of  com- 
mand over  Western  armies,  293 ;  campaign  in  Peninsula,  293-5, 
298-302;  his  recall  and  failure  to  support  Pope,  302-4;  army  of 
Potomac  restored  to  him,  305 ;  battle  of  Antietam  and  subsequent 
delays,  305-7;  his  final  dismissal  and  its  cause,  307-9;  his  political 
career,  300,  308,  374,  413-5,  416,  424;  resigns  from  Army,  437; 
Seward's  judgment  on  him,  427. 

McClernand,  General:  350-2. 

McLean,  Justice:  114,  167. 

Madison,  James:  37. 

Maine:  16,  40. 

Malplaquet:  364. 

Marcy:  49. 

Marshall,  John:  41. 

Martial  Law:  376-81.    See  also  265-7,  269-70,  313,  321,  335-6,  451. 

Martineau,  Harriet:  43. 

Maryland:  197,  225,  240-2,  304-7,  333-4. 


INDEX  475 

Mason:  263. 

Massachusetts:  16,  19,  172-3,  239-40,  296,  409. 
Mathematics:  67.    And  see  Euclid. 
Maximilian,  Archduke  and  Emperor:  388. 
Mayflower:    150. 

Meade,  George,  General:  356-8,  391,  447. 
Memphis:  226,  275,  349,  389. 
Meridian:  227,  389. 
Merrimac:  292-3. 
Methodists:  150. 

Mexico:  28,  90;  war  with,  91-3;  later  relations,  211,  256,  388-9,  404,  420. 
Mexico,  Gulf  of:  27,  208. 
Michigan:  38,  172. 
Militia:  228,  246,  369. 
Mill,  John  Stuart:  260. 
Milligan,  case  of,  in  Supreme  Court:  378. 
Minnesota:  27. 

Mississippi  River:  7,  8,  13,  26,  56,  198,  226,  275,  281,  283,  348-55. 
Mississippi  State:  26,  175,  179,  199,  227.  And  see  Meridian  and  Vicksburg. 
Missouri  Compromise:  39-40;  repealed,  109-12;  question  whether  uncon- 
stitutional, 112-5. 
Missouri  River:  26. 

Missouri  State:  27,  39-40,  113,  197,  225,  229,  244-5,  269-70,  333-4,  400. 
Mobile:  227,  388,  395,  412. 
Moltke:  217. 
Monroe  Doctrine:  388. 
Montana:  26. 

Montgomery:  199-200,  225. 
Mormons:  99,  130. 
Motley,  John  Lathrop:  138,  237,  238,  417. 

NAPOLEON  I.:  26,  215. 

Napoleon  III.:  256,  313,  388. 

Nashville:  339,  396. 

National  Bank:  42,  47,  65. 

Nebraska:  no,  113. 

Negotiations  for  peace,  impossible  demand  for  them:  402-5,  428,  431-4. 

Negroes:  Lincoln  on  notion  of  equality  as  applied  to  them,  124;  Stephens 
on  great  moral  truth  of  their  inferiority,  179;  their  good  conduct 
during  the  war  and  their  valour  as  soldiers,  330;  Lincoln's  human 
sympathy  with  them,  and  the  right  attitude  in  face  of  the  bar 
between  the  two  races,  330-3;  mistaken  precipitancy  in  giving  them 
the  suffrage,  334-5,  430;  the  Confederacy  ultimately  enlists  ne- 
groes, 431;  negro  bodyguard  at  Lincoln's  second  Inauguration,  435; 


476  INDEX 

projects  for  colonisation  of  negroes,  42,  317,  331,  332.  See  also 
Slavery. 

Neuse  River:  437. 

Nevada:  95. 

New  Berne:  437. 

New  England:  17,  173,  241,  326. 

New  Hampshire:  100. 

New  Jersey:  17. 

New  Mexico:  96,  99,  145,  194. 

New  Orleans:  4,  13-4,  46,  198,  226,  283. 

New  Salem:  4,  63-9,  78-80. 

New  York  City:  29,  49,  144,  155-6,  205,  241,  254,  384. 

New  York  State:  16,  17,  29. 

Niagara:  105,  139,  404. 

Nicolay,  John:  211,  235,  419,  458,  460. 

North:  original  characteristics  and  gradual  divergence  from  South,  set 
America  and  South;  advantages  and  disadvantages  in  the  war, 
214-9;  divisions  in  the  North,  see  Democrats  and  Radicals;  mag* 
nitude  of  effort  and  endurance  shown  by  the  North,  363-6,  426-7e 

North  Anna  River:  392. 

North  Carolina:  26,  27,  194;  secedes  with  Virginia,  229,  435-7,  452. 

North- West  Territory:  38. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford:  260. 

Novels:  67. 

Nueces  River:  92. 

OBERLIN,  150. 

Officers:  220,  223-4,  350. 

Ohio  River:  4,  8,  26,  117,  226,  243,  280. 

Ohio  State:  38,  161,  172,  340-2,  344,  359,  381-3. 

Olmsted,  Frederick  Law:  53,  57,  460. 

Oratory  in  America:  34,  41,  133,  136,  138,  155,  159,  362. 

Oregon,  Territory  and  State:  28,  92,  96,  112. 

Orsini:  152. 

Owens,  Mary:  80-1. 

PAINE,  Tom:  69. 
Palmerston:  234,  260,  313. 
Pardon  of  offenders  by  Lincoln:  420-1. 

Parliament:  relation  to  Colonies,  19;  contrast  with  Congress,  20,  23. 
Parliamentarians  under  Charles  I.:  33. 

Party  and  Parties:  46-50,  374-5,  385.    And  see  American,  Federalist,  Free- 
Soil,  Democratic,  Republican  and  Whig. 
Patterson,  General:  247. 


INDEX  477 

Pemberton,  General:  354-5. 

Pennsylvania:  17,  202,  355-8. 

Peoria:  72,  135,  142. 

Petersburg.    See  Richmond. 

Philadelphia:  184,  356. 

Pierce,  Franklin:  100,  in,  138,  aiS. 

Pilgrim's  Progress:  10. 

Pitt,  William,  the  younger:  376. 

Polk,  President:  91-3. 

Polk,  Bishop  and  General,  350. 

Pope,  General:  283,  301,  302-3. 

Port  Hudson:  343,  354-5. 

Porter,  Admiral:  349,  353,  388,  435-61  +44« 

Post  of  Arkansas:  351. 

Potomac:  225,  243,  249,  288,  306,  358. 

Presbyterian:  77,  439. 

Prince  Consort:  263. 

Prisoners  of  War:  398. 

Protection:  42,  45,  65,  68,  202. 

Public  Works:  42,  65,  71. 

Puritans:  17. 

QUAKERS:  17,  50,  153. 

RADICALS:  232-3,  245,  267-70,  328,  398-400,  410,  430. 

Railways:  7,  27,  226-7,  276,  339,  388,  396,  397,  447. 

Raleigh:  437,  452. 

Rapidan:  288,  311,  358,  391. 

Rappahannock:  309,  311,  355,  358. 

Rathbone,  Major:  450-1. 

Raymond:  414.    And  see  404. 

Reconstruction:  326-8,  333-5,  398-401,  434-5,  448-50. 

Red  River:  388. 

Republican  Party:  (i)  Party  of  this  name  which  followed  Jefferson  and 
of  which  leading  members  were  afterwards  Democrats,  30,  31 ; 
(2)  New  party  formed  in  1854  to  resist  extension  of  slavery  in 
Territories,  in;  runs  Fremont  for  Presidency,  112;  embarrassed 
by  Dred  Scott  judgment,  112,  115;  possibility  of  differences  under- 
lying its  simple  principles,  122 ;  disposition  among  its  leaders  to 
support  Douglas  after  Kansas  scandal,  141-3 ;  consistency  of  thought 
and  action  supplied  to  it  by  Lincoln,  122,  145-6 ;  nomination  and 
election  of  Lincoln,  160-2,  166-9;  sections  in  the  party  during  war, 
267-71 ;  increasing  divergence  between  Lincoln  and  the  leading  men 
in  the  party,  321,  326-9,  401-2,  409-14,  430,  434-5,  450. 

Reuben,  First  Chronicles  of:  11-2. 


478  INDEX 

Revolution,  American:  20-2. 

Revolution,  French:  31. 

Rhodes,  Cecil:  335. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford:  418,  459. 

Richmond:  225-7,  242>  245,  275,  302,  392;  siege  of  Petersburg  and  Rich- 
mond, see  Lee  or  Grant;  feeling  in  Richmond  towards  end,  431-2; 
Lincoln's  visit  to  it,  447. 

Roberts,  F.  M.  Earl:  364. 

Robinson  Crusoe:  10. 

Rollin:  67. 

Romilly,  Samuel:  32. 

Rosecrans,  General:  342-3,  351,  359-60. 

Russell,  Lord  John:  260,  263,  313. 

Russia:  nS,  211,  256. 

Rutledge,  Ann:  78. 

ST.  GAUDENS,  Augustus:  330. 

St.  Louis:  1 1 6,  244. 

Salisbury,  Marquess  of:  258,  259. 

Sangamon:  64-5,  166. 

Savannah:  398,  435. 

Schofield,  General:  397,  436-7. 

Schools,  Lincoln's:  10. 

Schurz,  Carl:  235,  421. 

Scott,  Dred,  and  his  case:  112-5,  144. 

Scott,  William:  421-2. 

Scott,  Winfield,  General:  93,  100,  205,  208,  231,  246-9,  274-5,  388,  453. 

Secession.    See  South  and  Confederacy. 

Seward,  William:  opponent  of  compromise  of  1850  and  rising  Republican 
leader,  101,  137,  152;  against  opposing  Douglas,  141;  speaks  well 
of  John  Brown,  152;  expected  to  be  Republican  candidate  for 
Presidency,  rejected  partly  for  his  unworthy  associates,  more  for 
his  supposed  strong  opinions,  161-8 ;  supports  Lincoln  in  election, 
169;  action  during  progress  of  Secession,  193-5,  2°45  on  First  In- 
augural, 206;  action  during  crisis  of  Fort  Sumter,  208-10;  vain  at- 
tempt to  master  Lincoln  and  generous  acceptance  of  defeat,  210-1, 
250;  his  part  in  foreign  policy,  262-5,  3^75  wise  advice  to  postpone 
Emancipation,  320;  retained  by  Lincoln  in  spite  of  intrigues  against 
him,  328-30;  administration  of  martial  law,  376;  his  usefulness  and 
great  loyalty,  406;  his  judgment  on  McClellan,  426;  attempt  to  as- 
sassinate him,  451 ;  certifies  ratification  of  isth  amendment,  336. 

Seymour,  Horatio:  381,  383-5,  413. 

Sigel,  General:  394. 

Shakespeare:  103,  108,  423,  448. 

Shaw,  Robert  Gould:  330. 

Shenandoah  Valley:  225,  247,  296,  394,  395-6,  424,  437-8. 


INDEX  479 

Sheridan,  Philip,  General:  220,  343,  395-6,  424,  437-8,  444. 

Sherman,  John,  Senator:  235,  380. 

Sherman,  William  Tecumseh,  General;  52,  220,  224,  249;  character  and 
relations  with  Grant,  348 ;  failure  in  first  attempt  on  Vicksburg, 
350;  under  McClernand,  takes  Post  of  Arkansas,  351;  with  Grant 
in  rest  of  Vicksburg  campaigns,  353-5;  at  Chattanooga,  360;  at 
Meridian,  388;  parting  with  Grant,  his  fears  for  him,  their  con- 
certed plans,  389;  Atlanta  campaign,  394-5,  424;  detaches  Thomas 
against  Hood,  397-8 ;  from  Atlanta  to  the  sea,  397-9 ;  campaigns 
in  the  Carolinas,  435-6;  meets  Lincoln  at  City  Point,  444-5;  Lin- 
coln's dream  about  him,  449;  Johnston's  surrender  to  him,  452. 

Shields,  Colonel:  85. 

Slave  Trade:  how  treated  by  Constitution  of  U.S.A.,  24;  prohibition  of  it 
in  American  colonies  vetoed,  36;  prohibited  by  several  American 
States,  by  United  Kingdom,  and  by  Union,  38 ;  movement  to  revive 
it  in  Southern  States,  145,  150;  prohibited  by  Confederate  Consti- 
tution and  inadequate  Bill  against  it  vetoed  by  J.  Davis,  200;  treaty 
between  United  Kingdom  and  U.S.A.,  for  its  more  effectual  pre- 
vention, and  first  actual  execution  of  a  slave-trader  in  U.S.A.,  317. 

Slavery:  compromise  about  it  in  Constitution,  25;  opinion  and  action  of 
the  "Fathers"  in  regard  to  it,  35-9;  becomes  more  firmly  rooted  in 
South,  39;  disputes  as  to  it  temporarily  settled  by  Missouri  Com- 
promise, 39-40;  its  real  character  in  America,  52-5;  its  political 
and  social  effect  on  the  South,  43-5,  55-9;  Abolition  movement,  see 
Abolition;  its  increasing  influence  on  Southern  policy,  see  South; 
repeal  of  Missouri  Compromise,  and  dicta  of  Supreme  Court  in 
favour  of  slavery,  109-15;  Lincoln's  attitude  from  first  in  regard 
to  it,  14,  76,  94;  his  principles  as  to  it,  121-131,  144;  slavery  the 
sole  cause  of  Secession,  178-9;  the  progress  of  actual  Emancipa- 
tion, 313-37;  already  coming  to  an  end  in  the  South  before  the 
end  of  the  war,  429,  431.  See  also  Negroes. 

Slidell:  263. 

Smith,  Baldwin,  General:  308. 

Smith,  Caleb:  167,  202,  405. 

Smith,  Kirby,  General:  339-42,  453. 

South:  original  difference  of  character  and  interest  between  Northern 
and  Southern  States  becoming  more  marked  concurrently  with 
growth  of  Union,  17-8,  36,  39-40,  43-5;  slavery  and  Southern  so- 
ciety, 52-9 ;  growing  power  of  a  Southern  policy  for  slavery  to 
which  the  North  generally  is  subservient,  91-2,  98-100,  117,  138-41; 
rise  of  resistance  to  this,  see  Republican  Party;  causes  of  Seces- 
sion and  prevailing  feeling  in  South  about  it,  170-88;  history  of 
Secession  and  War,  see  Confederacy  and  War;  Southern  spirit  in 
the  war,  216,  218-20;  heroism  of  struggle,  397;  memory  of  the 
war  a  common  inheritance  to  North  and  South,  455. 

South  Carolina:  26-7,  36,  44-6,  57-8,  173,  179-80,  182,  185-90,  200-1, 
208,  253,  321,  386,  435. 

Spain:  16,  26,  90,  211. 

Speed,  James:  405. 

Speed,  Joshua:  70,  81,  87,  116-8,  405,  440. 


480  INDEX 

Spoils  System:  49-50,  95,  254-5. 

Springfield:  Lincoln's  life  there,  70-7,  81-7,  101-9;  his  farewell  speech 
there,  203 ;  his  funeral  there,  453. 

Stanton,  Edwin:  rude  to  Lincoln  in  law  case,  services  in  Buchanan's 
Cabinet,  denounces  Lincoln's  administration,  made  Secretary  of 
War,  272;  great  mistake  as  to  recruiting,  299,  368;  Conservative 
hostility  to  him,  328-9;  services  in  War  Department  and  loyalty 
to  Lincoln,  272,  290,  329,  389,  406,  419-20;  at  Lincoln's  death-bed, 
453- 

States:  relations  to  Federal  Government  and  during  secession  to  Confed- 
eracy, 24,  221-3. 

Stephens,  Alexander:  179,  199-200,  432-4. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis:  87. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Beecher:  51,  54,  no. 

Submarines:  251. 

Sumner,  Charles:  101,  138-9,  418,  429,  448. 

Supreme  Court:  41,  112-5,  *44>  378,  382. 

Swedish  colonists:  17. 

Swett,  Leonard:  13. 

TALLEYRAND:  29. 

Taney,  Roger:  112-5,  *44,  206,  242,  429. 

Taylor,  Zachary:  92-3,  95,  98. 

Tennessee  River:  226,  280,  339. 

Tennessee  State:  27,  199,  226,  229,  275-7,  279-84,  338-40,  342-3,  393*4, 
397,  408. 

Tennyson,  Alfred:  259. 

Territories:  their  position  under  Constitution,  25;  expansion  and  settle- 
ment, 26-8;  cessions  of  Territories  by  States  to  Union,  38;  conflict 
as  to  slavery  in  them,  see  Slavery. 

Terry,  General:  433. 

Texas:  28,  91,  198,  199,  388,  453. 

Thomas,  George  H.,  General:  231,  280,  341,  343,  369,  388,  396-7. 

Todd,  Mary.    See  Lincoln,  Mrs. 

Trumbull,  Lyman:  120. 

Tyler,  John:  72,  91,  200. 

"UNDERGROUND  Railway":  150. 

Union  and  United  States.     See  America. 

Union  men:  letter  of  Lincoln  to  great  meeting  of,  384-5. 

Urbana:  291-2. 

Usher:  405. 

Utah:  99. 

VALLANDIGHAM,  Clement:  379,  381-3,  413. 
Van  Buren,  Martin:  47,  49,  66. 


INDEX  481 

Vandalia:  72. 

Vermont:  16,  38. 

Vicksburg:  226,  282,  339,  348-55,  449. 

Victoria,  Queen:  263,  451. 

Virginia:  3,  27,  37,  38,  39,  47,  54,  69,  98,  197-200,  209,  213,  217,  228;  and 

for  stages  of  war  in  Virginia  see  McClellan,  Lee  and  Shenandoah 

Valley. 
Volney:  69. 
Voltaire:  69. 
Voluntary  enlistment  in  the  North,  221-2;   results  here  and  in  U.S.A., 

364-5 ;  its  fundamental  immorality  when  used  on  a  large  scale,  366. 

WADE,  Senator:  194,  400. 

Walker,  Governor:  140. 

Wallace,  General:  393. 

War,  Civil,  in  U.S.A.:  general  conditions  and  strategic  aspects  of  the  war, 
214-27,  273-8 ;  preliminary  struggles  in  border  States,  228-45  >  first 
Battle  of  Bull  Run,  245-50;  blockade  of  South  and  naval  operations 
generally,  251-3 ;  war  in  West  to  occupation  of  Corinth  and  taking 
of  New  Orleans,  279-84 ;  Merrimac  and  Monitor,  292-3 ;  beginning 
of  Peninsula  campaign,  290-5 ;  "  Stonewall "  Jackson's  Valley  cam- 
paign, 295-7;  e°d  of  Peninsula  campaign,  298-302;  second  Battle 
of  Bull  Run,  303-4;  Lee's  invasion  of  Maryland  and  Antietam, 
304-7;  Fredericksburg,  309;  Chancellorsville,  311;  Buell's  opera- 
tions in  autumn  of  1863,  Confederate  invasion  of  Kentucky,  and 
Murfreesborough,  338-43 ;  Vicksburg  campaigns  and  completion  of, 
conquest  of  Mississippi,  348-55;  Lee's  invasion  of  Pennsylvania, 
Gettysburg,  and  Meade's  campaign  in  Virginia,  355-8;  campaigns  of 
Chickamauga,  Eastern  Tennessee,  and  Chattanooga,  358-64;  cer- 
tain minor  operations,  386-8 ;  military  situation  at  beginning  of 
1864  and  Grant's  plans,  386,  389;  Grant's  campaign  against  Lee 
to  beginning  of  siege  of  Petersburg,  390-2;  Early's  Shenandoah 
campaign,  394;  Sherman's  Atlanta  campaign,  394-5;  Farragut  at 
Mobile,  395;  Sheridan  in  Lower  Shenandoah  Valley,  395-6;  Sher- 
man's plans,  396;  Hood's  invasion  of  Tennessee,  396-7;  Sherman's 
march  to  Savannah,  397-8 ;  Petersburg  siege  continues,  398 ;  effect 
of  Sherman's  operations,  431;  Sherman's  advance  northward  from 
Savannah,  435;  Porter  and  Terry  take  Fort  Fisher,  435-6;  Peters- 
burg siege  progresses,  436;  Sherman  in  North  Carolina,  436-7; 
Sheridan  in  Upper  Shenandoah  Valley,  437-8;  fall  of  Petersburg 
and  Richmond,  and  surrender  of  Lee,  445-8 ;  surrender  of  other  Con- 
federate forces,  452-3. 

Ward,  Artemus:  208,  231,  324. 

Washington  City:  its  importance  and  dangers  in  the  war,  225,  239-42,  248, 
293-4,  295-7,  3°2,  3°4»  355-6,  376,  392-3;  its  political  society,  418. 

Washington,  George:  10,  21,  37,  76,  203-4,  388. 

Watson,  William:  460.- 

Webster,  Daniel:  his  career  and  services,  41-2;  his  great  speech,  45-6, 
173 ;  value  of  his  support  to  Whigs,  68 ;  Lincoln  meets  him,  91 ;  his 
support  of  compromise  of  1850  and  his  death,  99-100. 


482  INDEX 

Weed,  Thurlow,  193-4,  414,  443. 

Wcems'  Life  of  Washington:  10. 

Welles,  Gideon:  202,  252-3,  263,  271,  406. 

Wellington:  377. 

Wesley,  Samuel:  35. 

West,  the:  7"9>27-8,  46,  61,  91,  93,  155,  224,226,  303,  305.    And.  see  War. 

West  Indies,  British:  29,  52. 

West  Point:  223,  390. 

West  Virginia:  225,  229,  243,  296,  334,  400. 

Whig  Party:  48,  66-8,  91-3,  95,  100,  in,  117,  159,  433. 

Whites,  Poor  or  Mean:  55,  178. 

Whitman,  Walt:  61,  237,  238,  418-9. 

Whitney,  Eli:  39. 

Wilmington:  251,  435-6. 

Wilmot,  David  and  Wilmot  Proviso:  96,  99,  117. 

Wilson,  President:  45,  54. 

Wisconsin:  38,  172. 

Wood  and  Edmonds:  233,  456. 

Wood,  Fernando:  309. 

Wolfe,  Sir  James:  353. 

Wolseley,  F.  M.  Viscount:  217,  218,  229-30,  285. 

YAZOO:  350,  352. 

Young  Men's  Lyceum:  69. 

ZERUIAH,  her  sons:  445. 


REFERENCE  TO  LOCATIONS 
SOUTH  OF  GETTYSBURG 


1  Fayotteville 

2  Fairficld 

3  Monterey 

4  Emin«tabui1ff 

6  Mechanicstown 
«  Wlllianuburg 

7  Hanover 

t  Littletown 

8  Taneytown 


The  heavy  lice  ......  Indicates  the  boundary  of  the  Confederacy 

Railway 

Fort 

Battle 


THE  CIVIL  WAR 

1861-1865 


482 

Weed,  Thurlow 

Weems'  Life  of 

Welles,  Gideon 

Wellington:  377 

Wesley,  Samuel 

West,  the:  7-9,2 

West  Indies,  Bi 

West  Point:  22; 

West  Virginia: 

Whig  Party:  48 

Whites,  Poor  o 

Whitman,  Walt 

Whitney,  Eli:  3 

Wilmington:  25 

Wilmot,  David 

Wilson,  Preside 

Wisconsin:  38, 

Wood  and  Edit 

Wood,  Fernand 

Wolfe,  Sir  Jare 

Wolseley,  F.  M 

YAZOO:  350,  35: 
Young  Men's  I 

ZERUIAH,  her  si 


